Worship Musician May 2018 | Page 36

[James] Some, but I mainly use the Chieftain. The Bad Cat was sort of an experiment and came out of hanging out with the Bad Cat guys one afternoon. They were really happy with it, and it’s one of their favorite amps. [Jeffrey] One of the things I wanted to mention about the Sweet 16, that has happened more than once, is that I’ve had more than one front of house guy come to me and ask, “What are you playing? I didn’t have to EQ anything on your rig. It sounded great, just like it was.” I think that’s one of the things that’s unique about that amp. It’s meeting all of the criteria right out of the gate. James, I think that’s true of your Chieftain too. [James] It’s just one of those amps that feels like home, every time. Again, it’s so important to have that consistency. When you’ve played the same amp for twenty years you know exactly what it’s going to do. That’s not to say that you don’t experiment with other amps, but you have something that you know exactly what it’s going to give you, and then you can manipulate to be very much in the Line 6 camp, and I love and 12AX7’s. It couldn’t be more opposite of what they’re doing. But there came to be some a DC30, which is by far the more popular amp situations where I just couldn’t recreate in the from Matchless. But I prefer the Chieftain, and digital world what I’m doing live. So, I did some I’ve used this one for probably twenty years. I research and sent our tour manager eleven play it on just about everything I do, and I take it or twelve different choices for amps. And he everywhere I can. It’s loud had enough experience to say, “Okay, if you and clean, and you don’t use this, it will be similar and it will be readily have to crank it. I don’t available.” And that’s been the Mesa Boogie play super loud anyway, Lonestar - it’s killer! but a DC30 or an AC30 it however you want. That’s really important to me. [WM] James, I’ve got to ask about Andy Elliott and that Elliott guitar. Andy is a brilliant craftsman and makes amazing guitars. Tell us break up early, which a lot [WM] The Lonestar! You can make the clean of people love. But I like channel dirty, the dirty channel, clean… it’s got that it’s a big, fat, clean both the vintage and Boogie reverbs, and it can sound that you can get as run Class A or Class AB. What is there not to sparkly as you want, and love about that amp! James, your go-to amp is it’s really consistent. It’s a a Matchless Chieftain, correct? very even sounding amp across all of the frequency [James] Yeah man! I love that amp! ranges. It’s really easy to play through, and it’s my [Jeffrey] How would you say it compares to favorite. an AC30? I’ve seen you use those as well. [WM] Are you still using [James] Chieftains are 40 watts, with EL34’s 36 the Bad Cat? May 2018 WorshipMusician.com