Tired of pretentious music? Are you looking to just have fun and rock out? The good-time, make-you-move-and-groove medicine you're after is what White Reaper dispenses. The band's core was formed in 2012 when Louisville high schoolers Tony Esposito (guitar/vocals) and Nick Wilkerson (drums) started jamming as a duo. Then Nick recruited his twin brother Sam (bass) and Esposito added friend Ryan Hater (keys). And the fearsome foursome released their rowdy, ripping 2015 debut, White Reaper Does It Again, on Polyvinyl Records. Carrying forward their blend of lo-fi garage rock and pop-punk hooks, the quartet added second guitarist Hunter Thompson in 2016, before recording 2017's (tongue-in-cheek) The World's Best American Band. The glee blossomed with shinier, poppier melodies that soared over harmonized guitars—think crossing Cheap Trick with Thin Lizzy. The World's Best American Band graduated them to major label Elektra, where they earned studio time with producer Jay Joyce (Cage the Elephant, Halestorm, Eric Church, Carrie Underwood, Emmylou Harris). With Joyce providing a slicker, tighter sound, the quintet unveiled an even catchier package that employs the sheen of peak Cars and early Maroon 5 in danceable tracks like "Might Be Right" and "Eggplant." (The former earned them a No. 1 slot on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart.) But rock purists still got to stomp and howl with the hard drivin' "Headwind" and redlining "Raw." Hours before their headlining gig at Nashville's Exit/In, White Reaper's Esposito and Thompson checked in with PG to talk tone. The guitar duo showed us how the rigors of the road have impacted their touring gear decisions and why COVID-19 handcuffed one of them to the digital life. [Brought to you by D'Addario XPND Pedalboard: https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr (https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr)]

Rig Rundowns

White Reaper

At age 76, Eric Clapton remains a major presence in guitar. He's touring again rather than simply resting on nearly six decades of laurels, and with Slowhand's blessing, Dan Dearnley—the legend's tech for a dozen years—showed us his boss' setup before a September 21 concert at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena. Three Signature Strats, Martins, and not much else. Dig in! [Brought to you by D'Addario XS Strings: https://ddar.io/xs.rr (https://ddar.io/xs.rr)]

Eric Clapton

There's no doubt ZZ Top trademarked Texas boogie. And over 30 years later, the Sword furthered the Lonestar shuffle's legacy by darkening it. The Austin outfit's 2006 debut Age of Winters combined the rhythmic bounce of Tres Hombres with the power and might of Master of Reality. The cross-pollination of Gibbons and Iommi continued in 2008's Gods of the Earth, with heavier right-hand picking and tempos shading towards thrash-y Priest and Thin Lizzy's "Emerald." Traces of proggy psychedelia, like 2112 Rush and late-'70s Genesis, turned 2010's concept album Warped Riders into a swirling voyage of sci-fi conquest and space exploration, with the music matching the otherworldly narrative. And 2012's Apocryphon saw the band settle into themselves, collectively cherry-picking all the things that worked on the previous three albums. Songs like "Cloak of Feathers" and the title track show their musical certainty. High Country, from three years later, showcases a once-singular-sounding band finding a home between Houston and Birmingham that could be best classified as classic mid-'70s hard rock. And 2018's Used Future—as its cover depicts—shows the band comfortably, calmly, confidently pressing the accelerator of their Bombshell Betty 1952 Buick Super Riviera and racing towards their own horizon. This fall 2021 run had the Sword members—J.D. Cronise (guitar/vocals), Kyle Shutt (guitars), Bryan Richie (bass/keyboards), and Santiago "Jimmy" Vela III (drums)—handling double duty, with a headline tour woven around opening shows for Primus. Before their top-of-the-bill show at Nashville's Mercy Lounge, Shutt, Cronise, and Richie showed PG how consolidating gear (and volume) has helped them sharpen their blade. [Brought to you by D'Addario XPND Pedalboard: http://ddar.io/xpnd.rr (http://ddar.io/xpnd.rr)]

The Sword [2021]

One guitar (with no knobs), one amp, and one pedal is all this punk-rock papa needs to command the stage. ﻿It's pretty astonishing that a sophomoric band of misfits and outcasts have chiseled a 40-plus-year legacy of punk rock, but that's what the improbable Descendents have been doing since 1977. Their brand of snotty, snarling, snarky, succinct songs have endeared them to rock titans like Dave Grohl. "[They have] this shameless, love-song aesthetic—none of the other bands had the balls to do that," proclaimed Grohl in 2013's documentary Filmage: The Story of Descendents/All. "Everyone was screaming about Reagan or whatever." Additionally, through their blending of hardcore, drag-strip tempos, and melodious harmonies, they designed a vehicle for the '90s pop-punk explosion—paving the expressway for bands like Green Day and Blink-182 to crash into the mainstream. "They're like the punk-rock Beach Boys," said Blink-182's Mark Hoppus in Filmage. And don't forget their iconic, line-drawn mascot Milo, patterned after lead singer Milo Aukerman. That nerdy caricature's singular outline comically defines the Descendents' simplicity, humor, subtle brilliance, and everyman appeal. It also reflects the persona of Aukerman, who stated in Filmage, "I have this dichotomy of desires. I wanna rock out. I wanna be a punk-rock guy, but I also have this really strong ambition to be a scientist." The band's redlining riffer Stephen Egerton welcomed PG down to Birmingham, Alabama's Avondale Brewing Company, where he blasted through his punk-rock-approved, simplistic-yet-seething setup. [Brought to you by D'Addario Auto Lock Straps: https://ddar.io/AutoLockRR (https://ddar.io/AutoLockRR)]

Descedents' Stephen Egerton

Guitarists Tim McIlrath and Zach Blair enjoy tenacious tones with rock's mightiest tag team—Gibsons into Marshalls—aided by a few everyman effects and one mythical stomp. ﻿Rise Against rose out of Chicago around Y2k on the back of roaring Gatling-gun guitars, blast-beat rhythms, and defiant, sharp-tongued social commentary. The band's first pair of albums—2001's The Unraveling and 2003's Revolutions Per Minute—are blistering bangers rooted in traditional hardcore chaos, spiced up with fist-pumping, boot-stomping choruses. Siren Song of the Counter Culture in 2004 was their major-label debut, on Geffen. That album highlighted a broadening hardcore sound buffed up with more melody. (Think '90s Bad Religion messaging cloaked in early 2000s AFI harmonies.) However catchy they became, their message still ripped like a dagger. Appealing to a bigger audience with bouncier hooks, acoustic numbers, and string overdubs earned them their first splash into the Billboard 200 albums chart (eventually certified gold in the U.S.). Elevated visibility scored them back-to-back platinum albums—2006's The Sufferer & the Witness and 2008's Appeal to Reason, and that momentum carried over to a continued residency in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 with 2011's Endgame, 2014's The Black Market, and 2017's Wolves. And 2021's Nowhere Generation represents a maturing, melodic hardcore outfit that continues to stand up for what they believe in and still provide the revolutionary attitude to back it up. The continual growth and evolution of their melodic-hardcore formula has allowed them to roll into mainstream airwaves like a Trojan horse. Newcomers who were enamored with anthemic choruses ("Savior," "The Prayer of the Refugee," "Nowhere Generation," "Give It All," "I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore") quickly became dancing disciples because of the band's knack for earworms. The twin-guitar team of singer Tim McIlrath and lead guitarist Zach Blair welcomed PG down to Birmingham, Alabama's Avondale Brewing Company to see how their simple-but-stinging https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/rig-rundown-rise-against (setups have morphed since 2015). [Brought to you by D'Addario XPND Pedalboard: https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr (http://ddar.io/xpnd.rr)]

Rise Against [2021]

Big tones for big rooms takes big gear. The Grammy-winning guitar-and-bass team of Jake and Sam Kiszka give us a tour of their on- and offstage rigs. ﻿[Brought to you by D'Addario XPND Pedalboard: http://ddar.io/xpnd.rr (http://ddar.io/xpnd.rr)]

Greta Van Fleet [2021]

A backwards Strat, a radical Jetsons-y guitar, Def Leppard's secret weapon, and more pedals than currently listed on Reverb fill this YouTuber's tone lounge. [Brought to you by D'Addario XPND Pedalboard: https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr (https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr)]

RJ Ronquillo

He's played on more than a thousand albums. Now, here's a close-up look at this Nashville session legend's live rig. ﻿[Brought to you by D'Addario XS Strings: https://ddar.io/xs.rr (https://ddar.io/xs.rr)]

Brent Mason [2021]

Take a cruise through the Gibson- and Marshall-heavy world of this Grammy-winning, hard-rocking duo. ﻿[Brought to you by D'Addario XPND Pedalboard: https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr (https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr)]

Rig Rundown: Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger [2021]

Grinding guitars + soaring vocals = stripped-down rock bliss. The spark for Striking Matches flared in 2007, on the first day Sarah Zimmermann and Justin Davis met in a guitar class at Belmont University. They've been playing as a duo and leading other musicians under the band's banner, with an album and a handful of EPs to their credit, ever since. Recently, Premier Guitar's John Bohlinger met with Zimmermann and Davis in their East Nashville studio while they took a break from recording their new album. Zimmermann and Davis did some show-and-tell, pulling a lot of Gibson, Fender, and Takamine out of their collective hats, and playing some killer music, too. [Brought to you by D'Addario XS Strings: https://ddar.io/xs.rr (https://ddar.io/xs.rr)]

Striking Matches

Snap! Crackle! Pop! You've never heard T-styles deliciously deformed like this pair of steamrollers piloted by noise rocker Christian Lembach. [Brought to you by D'Addario Auto-Lock Straps: https://ddar.io/AutoLockRR (https://ddar.io/AutoLockRR)]

Whores

Classic-rock warriors Doug Aldrich and Glenn Hughes show us their latest touring set ups.

The Dead Daisies [2021]

These Fat Wreck-label punkers keep it stupid simple with single-humbucker, classic-custom recreations for their ripping Ramones downstrokes and pogo-ready choruses. [Brought to you by D'Addario's XPND Pedalboards: https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr (https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr)]

Teenage Bottlerocket

An Austin guitar legend in the making shares her rare Gibson, a custom-built amp, ferocious fingerpicking style, and passion for bringing fire to the blues. [Brought to you by D'Addario Auto-Lock Straps: https://ddar.io/GigBackpack-RR (https://ddar.io/AutoLockRR)]

Carolyn Wonderland

Bludgeoning, beautiful, jarring, and serene are just a few of the cinematic moods conjured by this doomy, fuzz-loving husband-and-wife duo of Mario and Sarah Quintero. [Brought to you by D'Addario Backline Gear Transport Pack: https://ddar.io/GigBackpack-RR (https://ddar.io/GigBackpack-RR)]

Spotlights

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!

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Rig Rundowns

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