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Whores Rig Rundown [2024]

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The Georgia-based sludge slingers rely on a Tele-to-Marshall combination for their punishing performances.


Since forming in 2010, Atlanta noise rockers Whores had only released one LP, 2016ā€™s Gold.ā€”until this year. Eight long years later, their new full-length, WAR., dropped in April, and Whores celebrated by tearing across the country and blasting audiences with their maelstrom of massive, sledge-hammering rock ā€™nā€™ roll.

The day after their gig at Cobra Nashville, Whores frontman Christian Lembach, dressed in his Nashville best, met up with PGā€™s Chris Kies at Eastside Music Supply to run through his brutal road rig.

Brought to you by Dā€™Addario.

Earthy Esquire

When vocalist and guitarist Christian Lembach got sober over 20 years ago, he bought a FenderĀ Telecaster off of a friend, then picked up an Esquire shortly after. That original Esquire stays home, but he brings this pine-body Earth Guitars Esquire out on the road. (Itā€™s the lightest heā€™s ever played.) Itā€™s loaded with a German-made reproduction of Schecterā€™s F520T pickupā€”aka the ā€œWalk of Lifeā€ pickup intended to reproduce Mark Knopflerā€™s sound. (Lembach buys them in batches of five at a time to make sure heā€™s got plenty of backups.)

Itā€™s equipped with a 3-way selector switch. At right, it bypasses the tone circuit; in the middle position, itā€™s a regular bridge-pickup configuration, with volume and tone activated; and at left, the tone is bypassed again, but an extra capacitor adds a bass boost.

Lembach installed six brass saddles in lieu of the traditional 3-saddle bridge. He often plays barre chords higher up the neck, and the six saddles allow for more accurate intonation.

All of Lembachā€™s guitars are tuned to drop C, and he plays with Dā€™Addario Duralin .70 mm picks. Theyā€™re strung with heavy Dā€™Addario NYXL sets, .013ā€“.056 with a wound G. The 30-foot Bullet Cable coil cable attenuates some of the guitarā€™s top end.

Tuned-Up Tele

Lembach had this black Fender Telecasterā€”the one he bought from his friendā€”modified to his preferred Esquire specs, with a single bridge pickup and the same 3-way selector configuration as his other weapon. He prefers the 6-saddle bridge to this rusty 3-saddle version, but this one holds a special place in his heart all the same.

Favor From Furlan

When John Furlan of Furlan Guitars reached out to Lembach about building him a custom guitar, it was an easy sell. The two worked together on this beauty, based on a non-reverse Gibson Firebird body with a Fender-style scale length, roasted maple neck, and rosewood fretboard.

Itā€™s got a bridge and locking tuners from Hipshot, and itā€™s loaded with Greenville Beauty Parlor P-90s. A typical Gibson-style toggle switches between neck, bridge, and both configurations, while another Esquire-style 3-way switch on the lower bout handles Lembachā€™s preferred bridge-pickup wirings: no tone, tone and volume, or bass boost.

No Logo

Lembach stays loyal to his twin Marshall Super Leads, with taped-over logosā€”an aesthetic Lembach picked up from Nirvana. A tech in Atlanta figured out that the one on the left is a 1973, which runs at eight ohms, or half power (Lembach removed two of the power tubes), into a 16-ohm cabinet. The power drop allows Lembach to coax feedback at lower volumes. The original preamp tubes from Yugoslaviaā€”no longer a country, mind youā€”are still working in the amp.

The one on the right is a reissue 1959SLP from 2002 or 2003, which Lembach finds brighter than his vintage model. He goes into the lower-input second channel to dampen the edge.

Both amps run through Marshall JCM800 cabinets with Celestion G12T-75s.

Christian Lembach's Board

A Loop-Master Pedals Clean/Dirty Effects Switcher manages Lembachā€™s signal. Its A loop is used for verses, bridges, intros, and outros, and has the majority of the pedals in it. The first thing in the A loop is the ZVEX Fuzz Factory made specially for the band, followed by a Devi Ever Soda Meiser, Beetronics Swarm, Keeley Nova Wah, Spiral Electric FX Yellow Spiral, Boss NF-1, and Alexander Pedals Radical II Delay.

The B loop has a clone of the Electro-Harmonix Green Russian Big Muff, an EHX POG, and a ZVEX Super Hard On. The A loop is already pretty loud; B somehow gets even louder. An EHX Superego+ is a new addition that Lembachā€™s planning to integrate.

A CIOKS DC10 powers the board, and a Lehle device under the board cleans up unwanted hum and noise.

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