Sneak Peaks

We take a look around Joe’s cunningly co-ordinated guitar rig

1 Fender Telecaster Deluxe Silverburst & Elite Telecaster

“First of all, I got the black Elite Tele with the single-coil pickups (next page), which I love and it cuts through really well on certain songs, but I really wanted a Tele with humbuckers in that I could use for the majority of our set.

“It turned up in the post, and it was the most beautiful guitar I’ve ever seen. And not only that, but it’s the best guitar I’ve ever played. It holds a tune really well, and it’s just got a vibe to it. Acoustically, it’s really loud, so I’ll just sit there at home on the couch playing it acoustically and love it, and then switch it to an amp and it just roars.”

2 Fender Player series Telecaster

“I used that on the whole of the last tour. It’s very similar to the Silverburst Deluxe; it’s just a rock machine. A really solid guitar, and I use it every night. It’s got the pau ferro fingerboard; I’d never tried one of those before, and it feels great to play.”

3 Orange Thunderverb 50 & Ro cker 30

“They’ve been in my rig forever now. They’ve got a nice warm sound – I like the distortion on them, because they’re not fizzy at all; it’s just chunky. I’m channel-switching both via a Boss ES-8, so it’s stereo, but then both go from clean to dirty.”

4 Digitech Drop

“I use it just for the octave and dry signal. It’s just for those single-note riffs, to fatten the low-end up a bit.”

5 St rymon Timeline

“I’ve gone through a bunch of different presets: dual delays, reverse on some things, and then it’s all running on MIDI through to the ES-8, so I have a bank for each song. We don’t play to a click, but tempo-wise, they’re in sync roughly, if we’re playing in time! [laughs]”

6 St rymon Mo bius

“I use some chorus but also the Leslie effect, the rotating speaker... I use that a bunch, more on the new songs.”

7 Bo SS/JHS JB-2 Angry Driver

“I’m using both sides on that. It’s running through the ES-8; you can toggle between the settings via the ES-8, which is cool. I run it into the distortion with the octave on; it just gives the octave a bit more bite, and then I use it again with the distortion, but the Blues Driver side of it with the drive turned right down but the volume right up; I use it more as a clean boost for solo stuff.”

8 TC Electronic Mimiq Doubler

“I’m running it in stereo, which is really cool, actually, especially for the single-guitar stuff. It doubles the signal but with the slightest bit of latency on one of the amps, and it just sounds chunkier; you put it on and just everything widens out. It’s on everything, all the time.”