Blind Melon’s Rogers Stevens - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 589

Hi, my name is Roger Stevens. I'm one of the many guitar players in Blind Melon. And I'm here to tell you about some of the gear that I'm using currently for our live performances. So, I'll start with this guitar. I just got this from Gibson about six months ago. And, I mean, I fell in love. Like, it's the best guitar I've ever had, by a long shot. It's a custom-shot 1960, just straight off the rack. I haven't touched it, you know. They sent it straight to me. I'm scared to even intonate it, just because I'm worried I'll screw it up. But that is a wonderful guitar, and I just feel very fortunate to have it. I carry it with me on the airplane. I won't ever, you know, let it go out of my sight, basically. I never use the neck pickup. I always use the bridge pickup. And I roll the tone knob down to around six or seven, maybe. And usually I'm just kind of playing with this, you know, just from eight to ten, basically. And I just pick it softer. It's super responsive, this guitar. It just resonates and, you know, I don't know. It plays like butter. I mean, I don't exactly know what... I mean, I know these guitars cost a lot, but I think they are getting them, I guess, you know, what is purportedly really close to, you know, the old, you know, Holy Grail, whatever, 1959-60 Les Pauls that people, you know, covet so much. I think they're kind of... I've never really spent time with one of those guitars, a real one. But I can't imagine. It's a whole lot better, but maybe I'm crazy. I don't know. I just started using these strings from this company called String Joy. And I just use the ones that are in the dark blue package. They're just... I forget what they're called, but they just sound really natural to me. Plus, they make the low E string, it's like a 48 rather than a 46. I thought, well, huh, I wonder why they do that. But, you know, I mean, psychologically, it seems to, you know, give me something. I don't know. You know, I'm usually just trying to make them sound clear, you know. And I don't, like, mostly, despite this pedal board, I'm mostly, most of the time, I'm running kind of straight through to the amp, you know. I just play in standard tuning. I bring one guitar. I don't even have a backup out here. I just, I don't know, like, I'm pretty low-maintenance. I just put it on that stand, walk out, pick it up, play it. If something goes wrong, we've got problems. But the other side of the stage has backup guitars, so, you know, I could use that, I suppose. But, you know, I don't beat the ---- out of it, basically. I mean, I play it, but I don't, you know, I'm not like a heavy hitter or anything with it. You know, I'm trying to get it to ring like bells, you know, and it does. It sounds resonant just acoustically when you're playing it. That's how you know. I mean, I feel like sometimes I pick up Les Pauls and they just feel dead, they sound dead. But this one sounds alive, you know, in the room with it, without it plugged into an amp. Super important. I like to get them on the lighter side. I don't know if that, if there's really any rationale to that. It's true, people seem to think that, but it seems like they will resonate more. You know, I have strats that are the same, you know, that I get on the light side as well. Yeah, this pedal board I just got made. I just got tired of just screwing up pedal boards and trying to put them together, you know. I just lose focus and I start making shortcuts and by the end it's just bullshit, you know. So I got these guys at Pivotal Pedal Boards to make this for me. And it showed up. What they do is they have either examples of these or they, you know, have a same size shell, you know. And so they make the whole thing with all of this wiring and it shows up. And all you have to do, it took me like 10 minutes to put it together. Just everything, these cables are cut like perfectly evenly. I could never do ---- like this. I would just, you know, I just don't have it. But it like, you know, it lifts up and it's got power supplies under here. These are the, look at that fell off. But this is the stuff, you know, that they recommended and it works like a dream. It's dead quiet. You can plug in like the, you know, this thing is, that is an amazing guitar pedal right there. That's probably, you know, these things have changed so much. I think since, you know, I was using them back in whatever the 90s or whatever. But now that you, you know, I mean I love Eventide stuff. So I have an original H90. I have an original H949 I use in the studio. So, you know, that's a great company. But, you know, I got these nice cables from Bullet, which are really cool. This is your input here, right? And without going into the switcher or anything, it first goes straight into this wah pedal. Which is a, the Jeffrey T's wah, it's like a, I think this is the real McCoy 11 or something like that. Man, I've got like three or four of his wah pedals and they're just killer. Like they're all different and I keep switching them out. I like this one better now than I go to the next one. And then it goes straight into this, which is the Analog Man Beano Boost. Which is basically a sort of a treble booster, you know. And he makes a good one. I have, as you can see, a bunch of Analog Man stuff. Because I've been using this stuff for years. This ---- sounds good. And so, then I run straight out of that into, this is the Analog Man King of Tone, he calls it. And it's got two channels. And, you know, depending on the amp, sometimes the amp, this side sounds great. The yellow side, you know, disarms other amps. This sounds great. Very guitar amp specific and it's super. That thing, like you can take it and use it like really with any rig. If you don't have much else. Because it just, it makes stuff sound, you know, pretty good all the time. And so then, after that, I'm going out into this switcher box that Loot Master made for me. He's a cool dude. He makes stuff for me. I've had stuff over the years, just different things. I still have them all. They all still work. They're built like brick ship house, you know. But, so it's just a two loop switcher. And in the first loop I have the Eventide H90. And going into the MXR Phase 90. And in the second loop I am going into these two delays. Just because, I don't know why I have three delays, but I do. And this thing is blowing my mind. I've not incorporated it into our live set yet, but the Engletide Rose. That's the best, coolest, weirdest delay pedal I've heard in a long time. I love that thing. It's like Dan Lamois on a box or something, you know. But, and this is the dual channel analog delay. Which I just use sometimes just as like a tight slap. Single repeat, you know. Now, I thought I was going to use it all like that. And this expression pedal will control both of these. And then all of it is switched with this. So this will switch this one and this one. And so I have, you know, certain songs that we have in the set. I have them in here. I can tap the tempo for controlling both of these. This plate, like that's a plate reverb. And I usually have that on and going straight into the amp. So that's usually what I'm doing. In fact, I haven't turned this on, the second loop. But these two on once on this tour. So it's really just, so these guys are pivotal. I may be calling them again and doing a smaller one now that I've gotten out here. Because I love the board. I love what it does. But I might, they make a smaller one, you know, that you can like take on airplanes. So I think that's all I really need. Because this thing is, this thing is incredible. That kind of does everything. Like I mean, you know. And you can, I got these two things talking to each other. I've never done ---- like this before. It took me forever. But I eventually figured it out. And I'm still plugging up the VCR, you know. So anyway, I run out of that into the Three Monkeys. Which is, I know the guy who builds this amp. He used to have a company called Blockhead. And I had some Blockhead amps. Which I really loved. He made a Marshall Bluesbreaker clone. It was amazing. And a friend of mine who used to play golf. He's a great golfer too. But the Three Monkeys are Ossie, who is my friend. He's the actual builder. And Greg, who is the tech for Brad Whitford from Aerosmith. And Brad Whitford. Those are the Three Monkeys. And they own the company. So this is on, you can see right there. It's like on three. And it's like a natural, it breaks up. You know, it's a natural. And it's kind of a, I mean it cranks. But it's not overbearing. You know. And I got the treble up here. The bass right there. But the interesting thing about this amp is this knob. Because this is a, I don't know what this exactly does. But somehow how he's affecting the transformer. But it changes the circuit. And so that's more like a champ almost. Where I am is more like a, almost like a Tweed Deluxe is what it sounds like to me. But if you go all the way over here it's almost like Vox Marshall like. But I just keep it on that one. It's like six different amps in one. This thing's ******* incredible. It's called the Orangatang. And you know, I'm bringing it out on the road. I got a case made for it. And when I put it all in there was 101 pounds. So now I got to figure out how to make it one pound lighter. So I can take it on airplanes. Yeah, you know I use, I started using these about a year ago. It's like the Dava. It's blue. They're sort of aqua colored. And they're just, I don't know. There's something, they're kind of softish. But if you hold them close to the edge they're not. I think this pick because it has different widths around. Like you can turn it around like that. And it's like a heavier pick, you know. But it has a bendy part in the middle. So if you get close to the edge it's like a, it's a hard pick. You know, but if you're back here it's almost like you can, I use it on acoustics, electrics, everything. Well I hope to see everyone at shows sometimes. You can hear what all this actually sounds like. I think it's working but let me know if it's not. Thank you.