We had an awesome time in Valdosta, GA and Orange Park, FL last week! It was great to see all of your smiling faces showing up wearing our t-shirts and singing along! Thanks for letting us debut our latest song we've been writing. We're hoping to have it released next year. It's hard to feel connected and make new friends a lot of times but you made it so easy. Thanks for being there y'all!
Kyle's up in Wisconsin where the high today is 8 degrees Fahrenheit. We have some colder up north shows coming up this week in Pickerington, OH and Altoona, PA. Wish us southern boys luck! You can check out details for the remainder of our Fall Tour HERE. We'll be finishing out our tour with warmer weather in FL,GA & SC!
Our friend Bryan opened up a really cool record store in Valdosta along side one of our favorite venues in the southeast. It's called Hole In The Wall Records. If you're ever in the Valdosta area you NEED to check this place out! They have so many gems in this place it's ridiculous. Not only do they have an impressive vinyl selection but they have retro apparel, books and tapes too! Honestly, it's a little hard to describe it and do it justice so take a look at their Instagram below.
During intermission at Friday night's show the owner snuck us in for a private tour of Hole In The Wall Records and we noticed this book.
We're total Gibson guitar nerds. They're the only guitars we record with and when he caught us eyeing the book he said we could have it. We laid down a few guitar tracks last week so it was cool to get to learn a little history on the guitars we have in the studio. A lot of you have been asking us what guitars we use when we record so here they are:
1958 Gibson 225 T (pictured left)
This was J's Grandmother's guitar and it still has her ghost in it. It was given to her by her friend (Hank Williams Sr) and it's been in the family ever since. This guitar plays itself. We've spent countless frustrating hours in the studio forcing guitar takes using other guitars only to switch to this one and get it in one take. If we experiment with alternate tunings it will eventually tune itself back to standard and we swear we've literally heard it whisper our names listening back to guitar takes we've tracked (listen closely to the guitar solo in our track "Get It Up"). This guitar is a classic but this one specifically carries the soul, blood, sweat and tears of an amazing women that is still with us every time we track with it. We use this guitar on every song we record even if it's just a backing layer. We love you Nanny! We'll take good care of it.
1976 Gibson Explorer (pictured right)
J picked this one back in his metal days. We can't tell you how much he paid for it because you'll think he stole it. The natural resonance on this guitar is incredible! There's been several hardware customizations but the most notable are the EMG pickups. If you're not familiar with the absolute beasts these pick ups are you can learn more about them HERE. We use this guitar when we're creating tones that need a little more edge. We've considered putting P-90s in it but we really like the the tonal variety we have having it set up as is. And before you yell at us, yes, we do have the original hardware in a box.
1999 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe (pictured center)
This is Kyle's main guitar both in the studio and on the road. Even though we have access to other amazing guitars there's just something about a Les Paul. It's named after the inventor of the electric guitar if that says anything about it.The story on this guitar goes that Kyle's dad got it for him after losing a bet that he couldn't learn to play the song Stairway to Heaven. There's been a lot of great Les Pauls made over the years but this one is our favorite mainly for it's pickups. The "mini-humbuckers" or "crunch-humbuckers" give it a natural balanced tone that helps us shape our main guitar tones on stage and in the studio. Thanks Dad!