“I’m a huge gearhead,” understates
Hank 3, who tours with four different rigs
for his country, hellbilly, Attention Deficit
Domination (doom rock), and 3 Bar Ranch
(speed metal matched with actual cattle-auction
hollers) sets—which are all performed
in one almost non-stop evening. The sound
system to accommodate this multi-stylistic
onslaught is massive—so colossal in fact,
that Hank 3 assists with the breakdown and
setup as if he were one of the crew.
“It’s always a challenge,” he says. “But
I’m especially proud of the sounds I can get
with these rigs, as well as the fact I’m using
amps you don’t see out there that much. A
lot of my inspiration for the ADD rig came
from Jucifer—the way she set up this enormous
amp and speaker array—and this is
definitely the most gear I’ve ever played
and ever hauled. People look at me like I’m
crazy, but I’ve got the rest of my life to strip it
down and play with just an acoustic guitar.”
On his Country Setup
“To start off with the country, it’s my old
Dimebag rig—the Randall RG-100 head. I
run it into a Port City 2x12 cabinet—which
is a really big-sounding speaker cab. For
some reason, that Randall solid-state amp
sounds amazing with acoustic instruments. It
doesn’t matter if it’s my Guild SB-37 acoustic
guitar, a fiddle, or a banjo. And that thing
is a workhorse. You can’t kill it. There are
a couple of spots in the country set where I
want some grit, and for that I use a Pro Co
RAT with the LM308 op-amp chip.”
The Hellbilly Set
“For the hellbilly part of the show, it’s
pretty much the same rig as the country
set, but I swap out the SB-37 for a Guild
Nightbird chambered solidbody, and I use
the RAT a little more.”
What It Takes for
Attention Deficit Domination
“The rig for my doom-metal project took
me almost five years to get into place. Most
guitarists worry about their highs, lows, and
mids, but I’ve always been fascinated with
really pushing some air without turning up
that loud, and going down and getting the
guitar sound extremely deep. What I’ve done
is collect all of [current High on Fire guitarist]
Matt Pike’s old gear from his band Sleep.
I have four of Matt’s Green 4x12 cabinets
and [bassist] Al Cisneros’ 4x15 Green rig. I
have four amps running simultaneously via
a Voodoo Lab Amp Selector for this set. For
my main high-gain sound, I use an Electric
Amp Innovations White amp loaded with
EL34 tubes and running two Green 4x12s.
Then, a KT88-loaded Electric Amp Innovations
Green amp is run through the other
two Green 4x12s. Now, for the low-end rig,
I power the Green 4x15s with an Orange
Matamp Legend 120 slaving a 200-watt Orange
Matamp Slave Unit that’s also loaded with
KT88 tubes. Finally, I power four subwoofers—
two in the front of the room, and two
back by the sound mixer—with Peavey CS
4000 and IPR 3000 power amps, and a dbx
120A Subharmonic Synthesizer. My guitar is
an ’80s Gibson Sonex—which puts out the
biggest, fullest tone I’ve found in a guitar.”
The 3 Bar Ranch Rig
“For the speed-metal set—what I call ‘cattlecore’—
I need a tighter crunch, so I just
unplug the two Green speaker cabs from
my White amp and connect them to a 5150
head. If I need any extra gain, I use the old
DOD Buzz Box to get that Melvins guitar
sound. My guitars are a Gibson Les Paul
with EMG pickups and the Guild Nightbird.
After I go from that huge ADD sound
with the subwoofers to the speed-metal
tone—well, it can be a tough transition
because my ears are shot by then. Things
can sound a bit strange—especially with
a bandana over my head.”