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Have Joan Jett news to report? Email us at jettfc@aol.com, and please include the source of the information so it can be validated. Rig Rundown: JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS from: premierguitar.com By Shawn Hammond
Jett's primary guitar for most of her shows for the last 20 years is a battered and sticker-bedecked Gibson Melody Maker with a single Red Rhodes Velvet Hammer humbucker. A black-finished 2011 signature Melody Maker with a Velvet Hammer that was a gift of the late Brian Farmer (guitar tech for Warren Haynes) serves as yet another backup. The volume knobs on all her guitars are wrapped with the hooked side of a piece of Velcro to increase their grip-ability, and each instrument features D'Addario .010â€".046 string sets. Nagy says that a big part of Jett's sound comes from using the broad, serrated edge of her D'Andrea Delrex Sharkfin 1.0 mm picks.
For her spring 2015 tour opening for Heart, she's also been playing a brand-new signature Melody Maker prototype with a Burstbucker 3 pickup, a metallic redburst finish, and red dot inlays.
Since her breakout years in the early '80s, Jett has relied on a Music Man HD-130 2x12 combo with JJ EL34 power tubes and Electro-Voice speakers. She plugs into input 1 of the rhythm channel and cranks the volume all the way up. An HD-130 head comes along as backup.
Jett's sole effect is an Ibanez TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer that sits atop her Music Man combo. It's set to turbo mode, with drive and level at 9 o'clock, and tone at 3 o'clock. Her only other onstage gear is a can of Tone Finger Ease string-lubricant spray, which is Velcro'd to the top of her amp alongside a tin of black-currant-flavored Grether's Pastilles throat lozenges, and a cup full of unwrapped pieces of gum.
Blackheart lead guitarist DOUGIE NEEDLES' No. 1 axe is a 1958 Gibson Les Paul Junior with the original P-90 and a set of locking Grover tuners. If he breaks a string onstage, he'll call for his only backup, a new Epiphone '61 SG-style solidbody with a TV yellow finish and dual soapbar pickups and a wraparound bridge.
Needles runs his guitars into a 100-watt Marshall JCM900 Dual Reverb head driving a 4x12 cab loaded with Celestion Greenbacks. Both the 900's channels are at about 4 on volume, with presence on 0 and the 3-band EQ cranked. A duplicate half-stack serves as backup.
Compared to his boss, Needles uses an effect setup that's a bit more complex, but compared to most players, it's still pretty barebones. He's got a Dunlop wah for two newer Jett tracks, and a trio of Boss pedalsâ€"a TR-2 tremolo (for "Crimson and Clover"), a BF-3 flanger, and a DD-3 digital delay that Needles virtually never uses. The board is powered by a G Lab PB-1, and a custom, single-footswitch box off to the side of the board switches Marshall channels.
Back by the amps, a Boss Noise Suppressor (which Nagy refers to as "the shut-up box") is ready to tame noise from Needles' P-90 pickups, when necessary.
BLACKHEARTS bassist Hal Salzer brings a pair of stock Fencer Precision basses on the road for the band's 2015 tours with Heart and the Who.
Salzer uses a 1970s Ampeg SVT driving an 8x10 cab, and he's got a duplicate rig as backup.
Premier Guitar's Shawn Hammond met with Zach Nagy, guitar tech for JOAN JETT, lead guitarist DOUGIE NEEDLES, and bassist Hal Salzer before the BLACKHEARTS' show at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on March 21, 2015.
