//podcastplus.net/feed/rig-rundowns~da793303 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! Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:05:54 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/ad982d46-d353-4dee-b37c-8dd4c3313a9a/UMO-RR.mp3 “Gear is meant to be destroyed in the line of duty,” laughs Ruban Nielson. “I realize I prefer to see my equipment all dinged up rather than sitting perfect in my basement—that’s a dorky thing to do.” That doesn’t mean Nielson doesn’t care about his sound. He noted in a  2015 interview with  PG  that he spends countless hours in his basement tinkering on breadboard circuits and swapping out components, trying to maximize a pedal for his needs. “I like the idea that instead of buying your sound, you’re building your sound,” he said. Over the course of 14 years, five albums, and thousands of touring miles, Nielsen has been custom-fabricating his guitar voice. But as we all know, the quest is never-ending, like trying to catch the horizon. After all, isn’t it the journey, not the destination, that matters? “I used to be too much of a savage to care about a clean boost or headroom,” says Nielson. “‘Just give me a distortion pedal already!’ B... Thu, 30 Nov 2023 15:45:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/ad982d46-d353-4dee-b37c-8dd4c3313a9a/UMO-RR.mp3 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/934e92ff-a971-4563-a6eb-a4879da66e74/AmericanFootballRR.mp3 The 15-year history of  Rig Rundown  has established that guitar gear fascination (and obsession) runs deep in our community. It’s the life blood of our show. But if there was ever antithetical example to guitar gluttony and equipment idolatry, it would be American Football. Their original self-proclaimed “bedroom college project” focused on self-expression, musical creativity, and working with what you had, which wasn’t much. For the recording of their pioneering  American Football  album released in 1999, they borrowed most of their gear, shared a single guitar cable and tuner, didn’t use bass, and formulated odd open tunings that allowed for sinuously melodic cinematic passages between Kinsella and Holmes. Their exploration of unique open tunings inspire a legion of players include 6-string virtuoso  Yvette Young . (She now ships all her signature Ibanez guitars in a tricky open tuning—F–A–C–G–B–E—derived from American Football.... Wed, 04 Oct 2023 20:14:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/934e92ff-a971-4563-a6eb-a4879da66e74/AmericanFootballRR.mp3 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/ea620f03-3219-40e4-984a-3c388290f834/AlterBridgeRR.mp3 PG ’s John Bohlinger hung with Alter Bridge’s two-man guitar army, Mark Tremonti and Myles Kennedy, before their sold-out show at The Orpheum Theater in Memphis. Tremonti and Kennedy showcased some beautiful signature Paul Reed Smith guitars, as well as a not-yet-released PRS signature amp. Thanks to techs Dave Pate and Scott Davis for their help with the details. Brought to you by  D’Addario Strings . Wed, 27 Sep 2023 16:27:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/ea620f03-3219-40e4-984a-3c388290f834/AlterBridgeRR.mp3 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/ebf989cc-d23f-4576-84a8-a4ec988e1207/EmilyWolf-RR.mp3 Emily Wolfe doesn’t play guitar. She bends it to her will. Like a bronco buster taming a stallion, she saddles up on her signature Sheratons and lets it rip. Much of the magic felt and heard on her self-titled debut was pure adrenaline hitting your speaker. And while her second album, 2021’s Outlier, incorporates Wolfe’s love of Motown grooves and modern-pop stickiness refreshening her songwriting with backdrops of more polished, waxy tones, but tumbleweed oscillation, helicopter, square-wave chops, and barbed-wire fuzz are still howls welcomed in this Wolfe pack. “When I go up there, something could hit me at any point—an emotion that I felt 10 years ago could come out in a bend on the low E. There’s so much rawness [to classic rock]; the edges are not perfect, but there’s a magic in that,” explained Wolfe to PG. But how do you marry earworm poppiness with a gunslinger’s approach to guitar? “Some of my rock friends say, ‘Pop isn’t relevant,’ and I’m like, ‘What are you t... Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:49:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/ebf989cc-d23f-4576-84a8-a4ec988e1207/EmilyWolf-RR.mp3 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/3b28ce86-e70d-4a88-a383-32e83ded6981/Vai-RR.mp3 Steve Vai is much more than a great guitarist. The American guitarist has established himself as a key figure in guitar culture, and one of the world’s leading masters of shred. Vai broke on the scene in 1980 as Frank Zappa’s transcriptionist, until Zappa hired Vai, age 20, to join his touring band—Zappa allegedly called Vai his “little Italian virtuoso.” Bolstering his guitar theatrics with sharp songwriting and producing, Vai went on to conquer the world of guitar music, winning three Grammys and selling 15 million records.  PG  was lucky to be invited to Vai’s recent show at the Country Music Hall of Fame’s CMA Theatre in Nashville, where his tech, Doug MacArthur, took John Bohlinger through Vai’s jaw-dropping current touring rig. Special thanks to Doug MacArthur for explaining this incredibly complex rig. Brought to you by  D’Addario XS Strings . Wed, 13 Sep 2023 19:06:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/3b28ce86-e70d-4a88-a383-32e83ded6981/Vai-RR.mp3 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/7e0ea0ac-57e4-491b-90d9-1e2da1e82aa7/DerekWellsRR.mp3 It might actually be easier to list the artists Derek Wells  hasn’t  worked with, than the ones with whom he has. The Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist and producer has lent a hand to more than 100 number one singles over the years, with household staples like Kenny Chesney, Maren Morris, Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, even Shakira. He’s also piled up production credits with artists like Hardy, Lainey Wilson, Maddie & Tae, and Scotty McCreery, and over the years he’s collected a flashy mantle’s-worth of awards: the Academy of Country Music named Wells their Guitar Player of the Year two times, and he was  MusicRow ’s 2022 Guitarist of the Year. Wells invited  PG ’s John Bohlinger to the studio to run down his main recording rig. Brought to you by  D’Addario XS Strings . Wed, 13 Sep 2023 19:03:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/7e0ea0ac-57e4-491b-90d9-1e2da1e82aa7/DerekWellsRR.mp3 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/3443b4af-9e46-4b64-a427-11534791dc55/ShawnTubbsRR.mp3 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 work with  David Crosby . The 30-year-veteran guitarist’s current album,  Demolition, A Collection of Short Jams , can be heard on SoundCloud, and he’s got a popular YouTube channel, but you can hear him demo is own gear in this Rig Rundown, filmed at his home studio. Brought to you by  D’Addario XPND Pedalboard . Wed, 21 Dec 2022 22:44:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/3443b4af-9e46-4b64-a427-11534791dc55/ShawnTubbsRR.mp3 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/38d7972b-8b56-44b1-8b44-36dd083049c9/CircleJ-RR.mp3 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 said ‘you’re fucking crazy, dude! I’m going to be dead by that time,’” jokes longtime Circle Jerks bassist Zander Schloss. “Now I say, live slow, die old!”The Circle Jerks were formed in 1979 by former Black Flag vocalist Keith Morris and ex-Redd Kross guitarist Greg Hetson. (Hetson has also been a member of another seminal SoCal punk rock band, https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/rig-rundown-bad-religion (Bad Religion), from 1984-2013.) They were joined by bassist Roger Rogerson a... Wed, 27 Jul 2022 20:04:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/38d7972b-8b56-44b1-8b44-36dd083049c9/CircleJ-RR.mp3 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/04c7df91-3232-4d05-89a2-6d6f45d0b9e8/FoxingRR.mp3 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 https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/rig-rundown-tiny-moving-parts (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 energy rather than analogous storytelling. And during the Rundown, Hudson hints at heavier, darker moments to come as they’ve been writing in tunings reserved for https://www.premierguitar.com/artists/behemoths-adam-nergal-darski-shades-of-black (Behemoth) and https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/rig-rundown-melvins-buzz-osborne-2015 (Melvins). All of these experimentations and transformations have allowed Foxing to ca... Wed, 20 Jul 2022 18:55:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/04c7df91-3232-4d05-89a2-6d6f45d0b9e8/FoxingRR.mp3 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/f08856e2-4cd5-4ee5-b6fb-60fbcb23c6e8/DefLepRR.mp3 It’s been https://www.premierguitar.com/rig-rundown-def-leppard (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 https://www.premierguitar.com/videos/first-look/epiphone-joan-jett-olympic-special (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 their June 30 show at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium, John Bohlinger talked with Collen, Campbell, and their techs, Scott Appleton and John Zocco, about the guitarists’ muscular live-show arsenal.Brought to you by https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr (D’Addario XPND Pedalboard). Thu, 14 Jul 2022 14:24:00 +0000 https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/f08856e2-4cd5-4ee5-b6fb-60fbcb23c6e8/DefLepRR.mp3