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Rig Rundowns

413 episodes - English - Latest episode: 17 days ago - ★★★★★ - 70 ratings

Premier Guitar’s world-famous Rig Rundowns take you backstage to explore the live gear used by your favorite guitar and bass players. Whether you’re into shred, country, indie, or classic rock, Rig Rundowns give you the lowdown on the instruments, pedals, and amps powering the biggest acts on the road today—and often we even coax them into demoing their favorite settings. Listen now and pick up new tricks for how to set up your rig!

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Episodes

Steel Panther's Satchel [2023]

April 05, 2023 14:52 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MB

Steel: hard metal. Panther: one of the most ferocious animals. Put them together, and you have perhaps the greatest band of the 21st century. And, hot off the release of their latest, most ass-kicking album ever, Steel Panther is re-invading America. While in Nashville, before they played a blistering set for a packed crowd at Marathon Music Works, Panther’s lead guitarist Satchel invited PG’s John Bohlinger to soundcheck to show off his mighty rig. Brought to you by D’Addario XPND Pedalboa...

Eric Gales [2023]

March 29, 2023 15:50 - 19 minutes - 18.1 MB

Full Rig Details: https://bit.ly/EricGalesRR2023 Eric Gales is back again. Since last chatting with John Bohlinger in 2017, the blues maestro’s rig has transitioned to include more signature Raw Dawg gear pieces—including pedals, amps, and, of course, his signature Magneto guitars. Just last year, the lefty slinger released the Grammy-nominated, Crown, which features collabs with his pal Joe Bonamassa. Gales was touring in support of that record when he rolled through Nashville. Subscribe ...

Bush’s Gavin Rossdale & Chris Traynor [2023]

March 22, 2023 18:35 - 32 minutes - 29.4 MB

Bush had an unbelievable debut with 1994’s Sixteen Stone that eventually surpassed 6x platinum status. The post-grunge juggernaut continued making moody, mercurial, and sometimes menacing music has continuing mutating while keeping them modern with a total of nine full-length releases with 2022’s The Art of Survival as their most recent chapter. The band’s headlining Ryman tour stop was furthering their support for the October 2022 release where the camp invited PG’s Chris Kies onstage to c...

Blackberry Smoke's Charlie Starr & Paul Jackson [2023]

March 08, 2023 13:43 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MB

Right now, they’re in Europe, but Atlanta-based rockers with a distinctly Southern musical accent, Blackberry Smoke, smoked Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium for two nights in February before jumping the pond. Their latest album, You Hear Georgia, was produced by Dave Cobb in Nashville, and hit the top of the Billboard Americana/Folk chart when it was released in mid-2021. PG’s John Bohlinger caught up with guitarists Charlie Starr and Paul Jackson before their sold-out show at the Ryman to run ...

Kenny Wayne Shepherd [2023]

March 01, 2023 17:59 - 40 minutes - 37 MB

It’s been 11 years since Kenny Wayne Shepherd filmed his previous Rig Rundown. PG’s John Bohlinger caught up with the blues-rocker before his recent sold-out show at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium to hear some killer playing and see some untouchable—by anyone but Kenny and his tech—gear. The tour stop was supporting the December 2022 release of Trouble Is … 25, a re-recording of his 1997 breakthrough album, which had four top 10 hits when it was originally issued: “Slow Ride,” “Someh...

Lake Street Dive

February 22, 2023 18:00 - 35 minutes - 32 MB

College internships can run the gamut. They can lead you into a career or dissuade you from pursuing one altogether. In 2004, while still attending the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, singer Rachael Price, bassist Bridget Kearney, guitarist Mike “McDuck” Olson, and drummer Mike Calabrese joined forces to perform as what they dubbed a “free country band,” where they intended to play country music in an improvised, avant-garde style. As it goes with many college-years experiments,...

Jared James Nichols [2023]

February 15, 2023 20:01 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MB

“I feel like a lot of people, when they see me play, they think, ‘Oh, it's going to be super aggressive, and there's a lot of shades of that,” shares Jared James Nichols. “But I'm so obsessed with the tone, the feel of it…. Growing up listening to Jeff Beck, Albert King, guys like that; the super feel stuff to me is where it's at.” That sentiment is overwhelmingly clear when hearing just a single note of Nichols’ playing. And what makes his musicianship that much more compelling is his aban...

Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley

February 08, 2023 16:48 - 1 hour - 68.5 MB

Since their debut, Before the Sun Goes Down, in 2014, Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley have made a name for themselves as some of the hottest country and bluegrass players in the business. As individuals, their credits range from Willie Nelson to Earl Scruggs to Merle Haggard—and as a duo, they’ve toured and recorded with artists including Tommy Emmanuel, Taj Mahal, Jorma Kaukonen & Hot Tuna, Luther Dickinson, and Molly Tuttle. It’s likely their forthcoming full-length release, Living in a Song, w...

Bartees Strange

February 01, 2023 14:12 - 58 minutes - 53.6 MB

“You gotta remember, I wasn’t really shit until about a year-and-a-half ago,” Bartees Strange reminds the crowd at Nashville’s Basement East just before performing his song, “Hennessy.” “I was just in my basement playing guitar. And my wife was like, ‘Do the dishes ... Do something other than play guitar.’ Now all I do is play guitar again [laughs].” Strange (born Bartees Leon Cox, Jr.), is a sponge and synthesis of everywhere he’s been and everything he’s seen or heard. Born in England and...

Julian Lage

January 25, 2023 20:44 - 25 minutes - 23.6 MB

When it comes to jazz virtuoso Julian Lage, you’d be hard-pressed to find an electric guitarist who uses less gear. “Any time I’ve [used too much equipment], there’s an awkwardness where I’m still grappling with the fact that I play here,” he says, gesturing to his guitar, then gesturing to his amp, “but the sound comes out there.” He continues, “It sounds like a joke, but it’s been a struggle for me. Any time there’s layers or filters or anything, I feel dissociated.” Of course, Lage’s rig,...

Sunn O)))

January 18, 2023 19:08 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MB

We’ve featured loud rigs. We’ve stood strong in front of Matt Pike’s octet of Oranges, been washed over with waves of volume from Angus Young’s nine Marshalls for AC/DC’s “small gig setup” in an arena, trembled from J Mascis’ three plexi full stacks, and even withstood Bonamassa’s barrage of seven amps at the Ryman, but nothing prepared us or compared to the Godzilla-rising-from-the-Pacific roar that is Sunn O)))’s auditory artillery. And it’s more than the sheer sight of 14 amps and 16 cabs...

Ariel Posen [2023]

January 11, 2023 18:00 - 36 minutes - 33 MB

KingTone’s The Duellist is currently Ariel Posen’s most-used pedal. One side of the dual drive (the Bluesbreaker voicing) is always on. But there’s another duality at play when Posen plugs in—the balance between songwriter and guitarist. “These days, I like listening to songs and the story and the total package,” Posen told PG back in 2019, when talking about his solo debut, How Long, after departing from his sideman slot for the Bros. Landreth. “Obviously, I’m known as a guitar player, but...

Blu DeTiger

January 11, 2023 14:04 - 19 minutes - 17.5 MB

Swarms of musicians and guitarists have found social media’s current 60-second attention span inspirational and fruitful. But what happens after that first minute? Well, for TikTok bass tycoon Blu DeTiger, you become a shooting star. However, her story isn’t that sudden or serendipitous. She’s been working towards the spotlight since she first picked up the bass to jam with her drummer brother, Rex, at age 7. “He was playing drums and I wanted to play an instrument,” recalls DeTiger. “As a ...

Top 10 Rig Rundowns of 2022

December 29, 2022 14:58 - 20 minutes - 18.3 MB

We revisited setups for Anthrax, Megadeth, Guthrie Govan, Bonamassa, and others, introduced ourselves to Cory Wong's and Wolf Van Halen's gear, but who's guitarsenal got the most clicks? Brought to you by D’Addario XPND Pedalboard: https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr

Shawn Tubbs

December 21, 2022 21:44 - 54 minutes - 50.1 MB

Inspired to by play guitar by his 6-stringing father, Shawn Tubbs emerged from the Christian-music scene. By his late teens, he was doing club and session gigs, and became part of The Violet Burning. In 1992, he played with Stone Temple Pilots on an episode of MTV Unplugged, then got deeper in the high-profile Nashville session scene, and began touring with Carrie Underwood. He’s since stopped road-tripping in favor of the studio, where he’s a first-call player and his credits include recent...

Butch Walker [2022]

December 14, 2022 19:00 - 40 minutes - 37.2 MB

When you produce acts like Taylor Swift, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Weezer, Green Day, Pink, Rayland Baxter, Keith Urban, and Harry Connick Jr., it’s hard to find time for your own music. Yet in 2022, Butch Walker managed to release his 10th album, Butch Walker as … Glenn—a surprising tribute to the ’70s piano-rock balladeers that were among the rulers of FM radio in his youth. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop him from bringing a fleet of cool Fender and Gibson guitars, and a hemi of an ...

Trivium [2022]

December 07, 2022 19:15 - 24 minutes - 22.3 MB

Trivium steadily raised its metal flag through the old-fashioned method—relentless touring. The band took any and all opening slots, priming crowds for Metallica, Iron Maiden, Killswitch Engage, Machine Head, DragonForce, Korn, and Megadeth before graduating to headliner status. That constant grind was fueled by 10 full-length releases that incorporate varying tints and tinges of their three core musical tenets: metalcore, melodic death metal, and thrash. (The band derives their name from a ...

Puscifer

November 30, 2022 17:40 - 20 minutes - 19.2 MB

Rut busting and reconstructing has probably been happening since the discovery of fire and advent of the wheel. Guitarists confront it each time they pick up a new instrument to avoid predictable patterns and tones. Premier Guitar contributor (and recent Rig Rundown subject) Pete Thorn has addressed this by suggesting several practices to approach our beloved 6 strings in a fresh perspective. And recently John Bohlinger recommended playing a different instrument to fertilize musical crops. B...

The Smashing Pumpkins [2022]

November 23, 2022 18:05 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MB

The Smashing Pumpkins' first two albums, Gish and Siamese Dream, were a huge part of the soundtrack for the early ’90s alternative rock revolution. Still sounding revolutionary all these years later, the band’s leader, Billy Corgan, recently brought the Smashing Pumpkins to Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena for the Spirits on Fire tour, on the heels of their 11th studio album, Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts. The concept album is a sequel to the Smashing Pumpkins’ definitive three-LP masterwor...

Mac Sabbath

November 16, 2022 18:11 - 14 minutes - 13.6 MB

If you were to ask my wife, “What two things sum up Chris?” … she’d likely respond with “grilled meats and heavy metal.” So, given the chance to interview the self-appointed (and unchallenged) founders of “Drive-Thru Metal” that solidified their crispy claim with classic cuts “Frying Pan,” “Sweet Beef,” and “Pair-a-Buns,” I ordered a full plate. The thing is, you don’t just interview guitarist Slayer MacCheeze and bassist Grimalice. Not because they’re from the “bowels of outer space” and d...

Pete Thorn

November 10, 2022 13:59 - 55 minutes - 51.2 MB

Pete Thorn has constructed a dream career on being heard, not seen. He’s toured the world backing Chris Cornell, Don Henley, Melissa Etheridge, Jewel, and Japanese rock icon Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi (even performing at Mt. Fuji for over 100,000 fans on the biggest concert stage ever assembled in Japan). For a self-proclaimed “guitar nerd” (check out Pete’s 2011 album under the same name), it was a 21st century guitarist’s goal. After that, what does one do in between tours to stay busy and relevan...

Joe Robinson [2022]

November 02, 2022 18:41 - 27 minutes - 38.1 MB

When Joe Robinson was learning to play in the remote village of Temagog, New South Wales, Australia, YouTube was his teacher. Then he discovered Tommy and Phil Emmanuel—Australia’s sibling 6-string slicers—and set out on a path that would lead him to Nashville, where he’s been a part of the city’s guitar cognoscenti for the past 13 years. At 31, Robinson’s fans include Tommy Emmanuel (who’s been a committed mentor), Steve Vai, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson, Steve Lukather, Albert Lee, Steve Mor...

Foo Fighters' Chris Shiflett

October 26, 2022 20:58 - 36 minutes - 50.4 MB

When Chris Shiflett left No Use for a Name and joined the Foo Fighters in 1999, he almost had no gear. The band was rehearsing to support their third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, and leader Dave Grohl was doing an inventory check on their newest member. “Dave asked me how many guitars I had, and I said, ‘Well, I have two, but one has a broken headstock,’” recalls Shiflett. “Dave chuckled and said, ‘We gotta get you a few more guitars.’” The duo ventured down to Sunset Boulevard hi...

Marcus King [2022]

October 20, 2022 18:03 - 25 minutes - 35 MB

Since Marcus King’s previous Rig Rundown in 2017, he’s made two albums—produced by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach—and scored a Grammy nomination. He’s also busted out his own signature Orange amp with an allusive name, and upped his profile, stepping from clubs to big halls. Not bad for a South Carolina kid with blues in his bloodline. And, really, not entirely unexpected. King hit the scene in his teens as a full-blown virtuoso, playing club gigs at night and going to high school by day. He ...

Code Orange's Reba Meyers

October 12, 2022 18:36 - 32 minutes - 44.4 MB

What would you get if you put the heaviness of Converge, the industrial sounds of Nine Inch Nails and Type O Negative, the catchiness of ’90s metalcore, the frantic delivery of Black Flag, and the sampled-chopped-and-glitched production of hip-hop into a blender and hit liquefy? You’d get 100 percent of your daily intake of Code Orange. The band was formed—as the Code Orange Kids—in 2008 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by Eric “Shade” Balderose (vocals, keys, programming, and guitars), Reba Me...

Amyl and the Sniffers

October 05, 2022 21:59 - 17 minutes - 24.3 MB

Amyl and the Sniffers are pragmatic. They rock fast and write and record even faster. Legend has it they knocked out their debut EP, 2016’s Giddy Up, from start to finish in just 12 hours in the band’s shared home. And their Australian Recording Industry Award-winning (Best Rock Album) self-titled full-length debut is a sweltering, swaggering, scallywag’s set of 11 songs that clock in at 30 minutes. During Australia’s Covid shelter-in mandate, the frenzied foursome locked themselves in their...

Exodus' Gary Holt [2022]

October 03, 2022 14:43 - 11 minutes - 15.2 MB

If you’re a devoted follower of the Rig Rundown series, you’ve probably noticed our recent rash of thrash. We’ve featured nearly every corner of the genre—heavyweights Megadeth, torchbearers Anthrax, revivalists Municipal Waste, and, now, pioneers Exodus get their (re)visit. Their four-decade reign and 11 gnashing albums are brimming with sinister, trouncing, wood-splitting riffs and vividly vicious narratives. And the blade of this chainsaw collective is its longest-tenured member, fretboar...

Chelsea Grin

September 21, 2022 19:29 - 18 minutes - 25.5 MB

Death metal is a genre built on precision and power. Chelsea Grin’s articulate picking and gut-rattling riffs are its foundation. But thanks to a rotating cast of ripping guitarists (including Rig Rundown alumnus Jason Richardson), their five albums have shown subtle brick-and-mortar flair by incorporating elements of djent, metalcore, doom, black metal, and even post-hardcore. The current lead guitar chair has been filled by Stephen Rutishauser since 2015. His input has given their chaotic ...

Dragged Under's Ryan "Fluff" Bruce

September 14, 2022 20:19 - 18 minutes - 25.1 MB

If you’ve perused YouTube for videos dealing with triple rectifiers, 5150s, the cheapest guitars imaginable, or absurd gear listings on eBay and Reverb, you most certainly know Ryan “Fluff” Bruce. The mastermind behind Riffs, Beards & Gear has amassed over 400K subscribers and nearly 100 million views since starting his channel in 2006. His charm is a mixture of quality, inviting guitar-related content with high-brow information and effective, well-timed low-brow comedy. And, of course, some...

Anthrax [2022]

September 08, 2022 17:56 - 42 minutes - 58.6 MB

Anthrax went to church when they brought their Covid-delayed 40th anniversary tour to Nashville—the Mother Church of Country Music, that is, aka the Ryman Auditorium—on August 15. And PG’s Perry Bean was there to welcome the thrash metal royals and talk with guitarists Scott Ian and Jon Donais, and bassist Frank Bello. Some things have changed in their gear since our earlier Rundown, in 2012, but not Ian’s loyalty to Jackson, which makes the signature-model King V’s he loves to play. Donais ...

Municipal Waste

August 31, 2022 15:41 - 17 minutes - 23.7 MB

Thrash metal has seen a resurgence since its ’80s heyday. Megadeth earned a Grammy for their 2016 album Dystopia, and very recently Stranger Things’ brave headbanger Eddie Munson brandished a B.C. Rich Warlock for a literally death-defying performance of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” that catapulted the song into widespread pop-culture consciousness. But for metal purists, Municipal Waste and their cofounding guitarist Ryan Waste, plus their track record of seven mosh-motivating albums ove...

Joe Bonamassa [2022]

August 24, 2022 20:09 - 43 minutes - 59.5 MB

After moving back to New York City, Joe Bonamassa spent some lockdown time in Germano Studios in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood, tightly winding the music for his latest album, Time Clocks. His longtime producer Joe Shirley had to work with the powerhouse guitarist remotely, from his home in Australia. Yet the result is as seamlessly Bonamassa as ever, with riveting guitar work that has echoes ranging from Africa to Led Zeppelin. “My ADD transcends into my musical life,” the other JB told lon...

Megadeth [2022]

August 17, 2022 16:58 - 31 minutes - 43.7 MB

Grammy-winning metal legends Megadeth and their massive headlining 2022 run hit Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on May 5. Before the headbanging started, PG’s Chris Kies talked gear with Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine, who ran down the specs of his signature Gibson Flying V and showed us why it’s the best body shape for ripping onstage. The band’s dangerously dexterous lead guitarist Kiko Loureiro showed off his stash of dashing Ibanez doublecuts. And both players (plus their techs) share insig...

The Aristocrats [2022]

August 10, 2022 20:01 - 33 minutes - 45.9 MB

“Supergroup” is a tired, overused term in music. However, when musical aces like guitarist Guthrie Govan, bassist Bryan Beller, and drummer Marco Minnemann jam… they are an unrivaled force of nature. Each player has a remarkable resume: Govan has worked with Steven Wilson, Hans Zimmer, and Asia; Beller with Satriani, Vai, Dethklok, and Dweezil Zappa; and Minnemann with the Mute Gods, Trey Gunn, H-Blockx, and Mike Keneally—among many others. What makes a supergroup novel is generally the co...

Coheed and Cambria [2022]

August 03, 2022 19:39 - 1 hour - 97.4 MB

It’s common for prog bands to create a fictitious narrative for their concept albums. Often, the lyrics tell a linear story, while the adventurous, experimental, and elevated musicianship provides emotional support and dynamism to the album’s arc. Some ambitious wordsmiths may even spread their yarn over two albums or releases, but Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez has penned an entire science fiction tale called The Amory Wars that has been transcribed in comic books and graphic novels p...

Circle Jerks

July 27, 2022 20:04 - 16 minutes - 23.3 MB

Any band that hammers along for 43 years should be praised. But for a hardcore outfit that first seethed “I don’t wanna live / To be thirty-four / I don’t wanna die / In a nuclear war” 42 years ago on their 1980 debut Group Sex, pushing on for over four decades is a bit of a miracle. The Circle Jerks should be honored with a skanking statue in their hometown of Hermosa Beach, California. “If you would’ve told me in my 20s that I’d be in a seminal hardcore-punk band in my 60s, I would’ve sai...

Foxing

July 20, 2022 18:55 - 35 minutes - 48.4 MB

Over the past decade and through four albums, Foxing has shown a lot of musical personalities. They’ve embraced the quirky, eclectic folk of Neutral Milk Hotel. Guitarist Eric Hudson has shown off some deft fretwork wrapped around complex rhythms similar to Tiny Moving Parts’ Dylan Mattheisen. They’ve dabbled in complicated, ambiguous instrumentation that echoes Radiohead. Most recently, the band has flexed a cinematic, post-rock cohesion that connects plot points via varied emotions and ene...

Def Leppard [2022]

July 14, 2022 14:24 - 40 minutes - 55.6 MB

It’s been eight years since Def Leppard’s Vivian Campbell and Phil Collen met with PG while they were on the band’s arena-filling odyssey in 2014. Now they’re on the aptly titled Stadium Tour, playing packed mega-venues with openers Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Joan Jett, delivering songs from the 12 studio albums they’ve recorded over the past 45 years. It’s quite a legacy, with “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak,” “Photograph,” “Rock of Ages,” “Animal,” “Love Bites,” and plenty more classic hits. At ...

Train

July 06, 2022 19:43 - 1 hour - 89.3 MB

After a five-year break in studio releases, Train came roaring back this year with AM Gold and a tour with dates stretching into 2023 that’s delivering their new songs and a sampling of the group’s 28 charting singles from their nearly 30-year history. PG’s John Bohlinger stopped in on the band’s two guitar players, Jerry Becker and Taylor Locke, and bassist Hector Maldonado, before their June 21 show at Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater. They displayed the big bevy of instruments they use to ...

Dead Kennedys' East Bay Ray

June 29, 2022 19:16 - 9 minutes - 13.6 MB

Punk rock is about energy, attitude, and message. It’s been the gateway drug for a lot of guitarists and music lovers. And those forces are what steered East Bay Ray away from his bar-band gig in 1978. “The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up,” Ray remembered during a 2016 PG interview. “I saw the Weirdos playing. I said, ‘This is what I want to do.’ I phased myself out of the bar band and put an ad up in Aquarius Records and Rather Ripped Records. Klaus Flouride (bassist Geoffrey ...

Los Bitchos' Serra Petale & Josefine Jonsson

June 23, 2022 20:08 - 14 minutes - 19.7 MB

The last two years have given us plenty of reasons to seek a jaunty, joyous listening experience in our music. And one of the best finds around is Los Bitchos—the all-female, internationally assembled outfit consisting of Australia-born Serra Petale (guitar), Sweden’s Josefine Jonsson (bass), Uruguay’s Agustina Ruiz (keytar), and South Londoner Nic Crawshaw (drums). Los Bitchos’ bubbly instrumental psychedelia cocktail mixes their collective musical ingredients (Argentinian cumbia, Peruvian...

The War on Drugs [2022]

June 15, 2022 21:57 - 54 minutes - 75.4 MB

For nearly two decades and across five albums, The War on Drugs’ founder and frontman Adam Granduciel has narrated our complex modern lives while his band has scored our dreams. The captivating moods of their music, much like us, morph from dense melancholy to saturated, swirling madness and everywhere in between. Granduciel often layers his Springsteen-meets-Young proletariat prose atop a post-rock soundscape, but the heartbeat of their impressive, expansive live shows is their gear and ho...

Old Crow Medicine Show's Mike Harris

June 09, 2022 18:15 - 49 minutes - 67.9 MB

Mike Harris says he “Forrest Gump-ed” his way into the Grammy-winning Americana string band Old Crow Medicine Show when he was drafted to join in January 2021. But rather than picking his spot in the group from life’s box of chocolates, Harris’ initial connection was his friendship with drummer Jerry Pentecost. He quickly proved himself an important member of the Nashville-based outfit of “Wagon Wheel” fame, thanks to his flexible guitar, mandolin, banjo, resonator, and vocal abilities. Har...

Mammoth WVH

June 01, 2022 17:54 - 45 minutes - 62.9 MB

Following in a parent’s professional footsteps is daunting. Imagine re-treading that ground in the public eye. Now conceptualize walking in the footsteps of one of the greatest guitarists to ever live. Succeeding on any level seems impossible. So where do you start when trying to find your own voice on an instrument your dad basically reconstructed? “The main thing, when I started doing this, was that I wanted to find my own sort of sound and not do everything dad did,” says Wolfgang Van Ha...

All That Remains [2022]

May 25, 2022 20:07 - 26 minutes - 36.6 MB

A lot of bands are lucky enough to carve a career with one big hit. If they’re even luckier, they’ll ride the wave of an impactful album for decades. But for melodic metalcore heavyweights All That Remains, who are honoring their game-changing The Fall of Ideals with a full album play, it’s not even their most-popular record. Following on the energy and success of that influential 2006 album, they released five straight albums that landed in the top 10 of Billboard’s U.S. Rock chart. The co...

Shinedown's Zach Myers & Eric Bass [2022]

May 19, 2022 15:07 - 48 minutes - 65.9 MB

Musical acts currently filling arenas fall into a few categories: pop, electronic, country, and legacy. The notion of modern or contemporary rock bands packing enormo-domes feels like a fossil, but don’t tell that to platinum-selling Shinedown, who’s been packing thousands-of-seats houses for years. The group was founded by vocalist Brent Smith in 2001, after his previous band, Dreve, disbanded). He enlisted Jasin Todd (guitarist), Brad Stewart (bass), and Barry Kerch (drums). Zach Myers jo...

Matt Sweeney & Emmett Kelly of Superwolves

May 11, 2022 21:43 - 42 minutes - 58.6 MB

Matt Sweeney doesn’t want to dazzle you with rock guitar. That’s boring. That’s lazy. At least to him. He wants to mesmerize you. “Really, that’s the point of music: to get people’s minds off of whatever and to hypnotize them a little bit,” Sweeney told PG in 2021. After beginning his Superwolves collaboration with Will Oldham, “that’s when I thought, ‘Cool, I did the thing that I wanted to do. I can fingerpick now and I can play with a really great singer who is working in an idiom that I ...

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Jeff and Jaime Hanna

May 04, 2022 19:44 - 53 minutes - 73.8 MB

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is an American music legend—a Grammy-winning outfit that’s also been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In this group’s case, what becomes a legend most is still working as hard as when Jeff Hanna co-founded the NGBD in 1966. So, when PG’s John Bohlinger recently checked in with Hanna and his guitar-playing son, Jaime Hanna, they were rehearsing at Nashville’s SIR for an ambitious spring and summer Nitty Gritty Dirt Band tour supporting a new album, Dir...

Nir Felder and Will Lee

April 27, 2022 19:06 - 31 minutes - 43.5 MB

Nir Felder has been called “the next big jazz guitarist” by NPR and hailed by The New York Times as a “whiz kid.” Will Lee is the Grammy-winning Musician’s Hall of Fame member you’ve likely seen and heard playing bass as part of Paul Shaffer’s World’s Most Dangerous Band on David Letterman’s late-night talk shows. Currently, Felder and Lee are touring together with drummer Keith Carlock (Steely Dan, Sting), Jeff Coffin on saxophones and woodwinds (Dave Matthews Band, Bela Fleck & the Fleckt...

Dirty Honey

April 20, 2022 19:42 - 25 minutes - 35 MB

Rock ’n’ roll has a long tradition of building on the work of previous stars and reinterpreting their influences. The Beatles honored the Isley Brothers, Elvis covered Little Richard … up to contemporaries like the Black Keys celebrating hill country blues beacons R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, and Greta Van Fleet echoing Led Zeppelin and Motown. Dirty Honey is reenergizing the hard-rock sound of the 1970s and sleazy Sunset swagger of the 1980s with their amalgamation of heroes that ra...

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@premierguitar 15 Episodes