Joe Bonamassa’s gear obsession is so strong that his home, Nerdville, is a museum. So it’s no surprise his current live rig features some rare and valuable gear.
In a new Rig Exploration With American Musical Supply, the same outlet that had Steve Morse covering Jeff Beck with their house band, he reveals what's in his “amp shanty.”
“What we have here can probably be described as the world's most expensive three-channel amp,” he says.
“I've got an 11-piece band, including me, so I have to fit in between them. This whole frontline will really eat into the mid-bandwidth.”
Channel A pairs two 1987 Silver Marshall Jubilee heads with two custom-made blackface Fender Twin combo amps for a “straightforward rock” sound. The combos are fairly recent additions, but one of the Jubilees has been part of his rig for decades.
“I bought it at the Buffalo, New York, Musician's Flea Market in 1994 for $400,” he explains. “This guy's walking around the convention hall with this amp asking for $600. My father, who was a guitar dealer at the time, said 'That's' too much, offer him $400.'
“He walks it around again, another lap, and these things are heavy. He says 'Would you do $500?' I said 'No, my dad will only let me go to 400 bucks.' He comes back around about 20 minutes later, drops the amp in front of me and says, 'Gimme the $400.' And I've been using it ever since.”
Channel B pairs his Jubilees with two 50-watt Dumble Overdrive Special combos. They’re set to their Overdrive channels “as loud as they’ll go,” which is just past midway.
The Dumbles are from 1984 and 2003 and are hooked up to a Mesa/Boogie Revolver 1x12 rotary speaker cabinet. “It’s kept on mostly for a chorus solo tone that just spreads it out a little bit,” Bonamassa says. A fairly simple Boss RV-5 reverb pedal sits on one of the amps.
Bonamassa had sold his entire Dumble collection in 2014, but has gone on to buy eight since, three of which are out on the road with him.
The last of his Dumble trio is a 100-watt Super Overdrive Special head, paired with an original TC Electronic Chorus pedal for channel C.
“It’s set to what I can best describe as a Larry Carlton thing: clean channel, but driven,” the bluesman explains. “It's the most articulate that I get, to the point that the nights I suck, you don't hear it.”
Bonamassa switches between the channels with a 25-year-old Lehle box, similar to the one found on Mark Tremonti’s current Creed rig, with each serving “three different stages of midrange depending on the song”.
All three feed into a curious cabinet that looks like a 4x12 but is in fact two 2x12s split vertically and comprising four Electro-Voice EV12L speakers.
Asked if he likes the EV12Ls for their headroom, he responds: “Whatever the internet tells me to do, I tend to do the exact opposite.”
But with a degree of seriousness, he adds, “With Marshalls, especially high-gain preamp Marshalls like the '87 Silver Jubilee, I like the E-Vs because there's no coloration like Celestions.”
His pedalboard is a fairly simple set-up littered with classics. There’s a Boss DD- 2 digital delay, 1981 Ibanez Tube Screamer, MXR Micro Flanger, EHX Micro POG, and Fuzz Face.
Lastly, there's his special Cry Baby Wah, painted Lake Placid Blue for him by Fender, and his newly released Deep State overdrive, described as an “extremely good” Klon copy with a brighter midrange, which sits alongside an original Klon Centaur.
“As if it wasn’t bougie enough!” the guitarist adds with a laugh.
Guitar Player hasn’t crunched the numbers, but Bonamassa’s claim to the world's most expensive three-channel rig seems safe.
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