Bill Kelliher (Mastodon) Guitar Rig

Bill Kelliher is a riff writing monster and one half of Mastodon’s twin guitar attack. Throughout the years Bill Kelliher’s guitar rig has served as a template for anyone partial to some heavy riffing. Mastodon are one of my favourite bands of all time so this is very much a labour of love.

This is – and probably always will be – a work in progress. Specific details on Bill Kelliher’s guitar gear from the Remission and Leviathan cycles are not that easy to come by but I am always searching and will add to it if I can. The core of Kelliher’s guitar tone has remained built around the Marshall JCM800 tone stack – or hot rodded variations on it – with few effects.

Remission era (2002 – 2004)

In the early days of Mastodon, Kelliher was often seen playing Yamaha SG models as well as Gibson Les Pauls.

In interviews Kelliher has said that he was also using Marshall JCM800s and potentially the Laney VH100R was also used at times throughout this period.

The picture below is a screen capture for a bootleg video that was on YouTube featuring Mastodon playing at Hellfest in July 2004. During the performance Kelliher was playing his Gibson Les Paul Custom Silverburst through what appeared to be a Marshall head which I’d assume based on his preference would have been a JCM800 model.

One of Bill Kelliher’s early silverburst Yamaha SG1000s from the early 2000s was sold on Reverb in 2020. Pictures of the guitar and further information are below.

Leviathan era (2004 – 2005)

Throughout the Leviathan album cycle Kelliher continued to be seen playing Yamaha SG variants and Gibson Les Pauls. The led to his eventual Yamaha endorsement around the 2005-2006 period.

Blood Mountain era (2006 – 2008)

It was around the release of Blood Mountain that Kelliher – and Troy Sanders – scored a Yamaha endorsement. Kelliher’s preferred model at the time was the SBG1000 as seen in various promo photos as well as ads at the time.

While touring the Blood Mountain album Kelliher used a fleet of Gibson guitars:

• Gibson Les Paul Custom Silverburst (1979)
• Gibson Les Paul Custom (1982)
• Gibson Explorer Silverburst (1981)
• Gibson Explorer Black (1976)

He was also using a couple of Yamaha double-cutaway SGs, a Silverburst and Sunburst style.

Amp wise, I was using a Laney VH100R for awhile a two channel thing in combo with a JCM800 dual channel. But now I’ve opted to use a JCM800 reissue which is a single channel that with a distortion pedal sounds fuckin’ sick. I love it. I’ve decided to bring out the old pedals too like a Tube Driver. It is an old pedal that was made by Chandler Industries in 1985. It is a big fat thing that has a built in tube which I also used on the record too. It has such a great sound. But it’s not really good for touring as it not very sturdy and kind of breaks down a lot.

“Mastodon’s Guitarist Bill Kelliher: ‘I Write Stuff That Is Off Time‘”, Ultimate Guitar, 2 June 2007.

Crack the Skye era (2009 – 2010)

In June 2009 Bill Kelliher and Brent Hinds were interviewed by Guitar World and asked about the recording of the ‘Crack the Skye’ album.

In the interview Kelliher spoke about the recording progress and working with Brendan O’Brien and his massive collection of gear.

Brendan had an old Telecaster that I used on a couple of clean, but gritty, parts on the record. A lot of those parts aren’t totally predominant, but they’re mixed in there. I played a Danelectro baritone on the middle part of “Ghost of Karelia.” I used an open tuning, which allowed the open strings to ring out and made the part easier to play. We used the Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail reverb pedal extensively on the record, some tremolo and octave pedals like the Electro-Harmonix POG and a really old Leslie speaker cabinet that has a really Zeppelin-y sound on a few songs.

‘Mastodon: Russian Revolution‘, Guitar World, 11 June 2009

In a May 2009 interview with Premier Guitar Kelliher spoke about the guitars he was touring with at the time. These inclluded:

• Gibson Explorer (1980)
• Les Paul Custom Tobacco Sunburst
• Les Paul Custom Silverburst (1982)
• Yamaha SBG3000
• Yamaha SBG1000
• First Act custom 9-string Silverburst DC Lola.

Kelliher also spoke about his pickup preference.

I’ve been dropping the Seymour Duncan Distortion pickups (SH-6) in my guitars for years, but I recently tried out some of the new EMG X Series pickups (85/60) in my white Explorer and it shreds with some killer-crunching tones. I’ve been so used to the Seymour Duncans and know what to expect from those Distortion pickups, but then again, I’m always experimenting with things.

‘Interview: Mastodon’s Brent Hinds & Bill Kelliher‘, Premier Guitar, 4 May 2009.

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It was around the 2009 period that Kelliher introduced the Marshall JCM800 2203KK Kerry King head in to his rig pairing it with a JCM800 2203 Reissue. 2009 also marked the departure from the Marshall cabinets to Mills Acoustics Afterburner cabinets.

I’ve been using Marshall cabinets for awhile, but I’ve started using Mills Acoustics Afterburner 412B cabs with my Marshalls. Those Mills cabs are big, beefy, burly sound machines that just rock with four Celestion Vintage 30s. They sound great with the Marshalls.

‘Interview: Mastodon’s Brent Hinds & Bill Kelliher‘, Premier Guitar, 4 May 2009.

During the 2009 tour Kelliher was running a bunch of stomp boxes in to the front of his amp.

But for my board, I mainly just use an Ibanez Tube King overdrive pedal, a Boss RT-20 Rotary Sound Processor that emulates rotary speaker sounds for some clean stuff, a MXR M-135 Smart Noise Gate and a Digitech JamMan Looper.

‘Interview: Mastodon’s Brent Hinds & Bill Kelliher‘, Premier Guitar, 4 May 2009.

In 2009 Bill Kelliher was also featured in the Guitar World column Vulgar Display of Power in September 2009. It included much of the gear mentioned above with the inclusion of a silverburst Gibson RD reissue whilst omitting the Yamaha and First Act guitars he was also seen with on tour.

The Hunter (2011 – 2013)

The Hunter was a departure from the bands previous concept album cycles.

 My main guitar is a ’74 Gibson Les Paul Custom 20th Anniversary tobacco burst that I recently had refretted and set up with all new hardware and volume and tone pots by the Gibson USA Custom Shop. They put in their killer ’57 Classic humbuckers, too. I also got turned on to a Fender Jim Root Telecaster that Jim gave me. It has EMG 81 and 60 pickups.

“Mastodon: Epic Wail” Chris Kies, 18 October 2011.

Kelliher also used a Yamaha SBG2000 at times throughout the recording, in particular the first half of the ‘Black Tongue’ solo, recorded in a hotel room on a laptop using AmpliTube while on tour in France.

The second half of the ‘Black Tongue’ solo was played on a new Gibson Explorer with EMG X Series 81 and 85 humbuckers. The EMG equipped Explorer also featured on ‘All the Heavy Lifting’ and some of the harmonies on ‘Curl of the Burl’.

In terms of the amplifiers used for recording, Kelliher went to his tried and true Marshall heads.

I used my old, 2-channel Marshall JCM800s, because I always find myself going back to those amps for my tone. I really like the punch they offer and how I can cut through and be heard between Brann’s crazy drumming, Brent’s riffs, and Troy’s bass lines. I used my 100-watt Marshall Kerry King JCM800 for layering and a few other parts, but the main parts were recorded with the old JCM800s. All my amps went through this beat up Marshall 1960B 4×12 loaded with 20-watt Celestions. I love trying new gear all the time, but I always seem to come back to the Marshalls.

“Mastodon: Epic Wail” Chris Kies, 18 October 2011.

In 2013 Bill Kelliher picked up a Gibson endorsement that saw the release of his first the Gibson signature model, the ‘Golden Axe’ Explorer that featured a gold burst finish and Lace Nitro Hemi humbuckers.

Once More ‘Round the Sun (2014–2015)

Late 2014 saw Gibson release the second Bill Kelliher signature guitar, the Gibson Les Paul “Halcyon”. The Halcyon came equipped with the – as then – recently released Lace Sensor Lace Dissonant Aggressor pickups and also featured a push-pull coil splitting on the individual volume controls for single-coil sounds.

Bill Kelliher walked through his European touring rig during a rig run down with the Guitar Zombie in Sweden in 2014.

His main stage guitars were predominantly Gibson Les Paul variants.

• Gibson Les Paul Halcyon with Dissonant Aggressor pickups
• Gibson Les Paul Custom (1982) Red Wine with EMG pickups in Mastodon’s A tuning
• Gibson Les Paul Custom (1977) White in D standard tuning Lace Nitro Hemi in the Bridge
• Gibson Les Paul Custom (1982) Silverburst Mojotone PAF stlye pickup in the Bridge

For amplifiers Kelliher ran a pair of Marshall JCM800 2203 heads:

• Marshall JCM800 2203 Reissue
• Marshall JCM800 2203 original

Interestingly in the interview Kelliher mentions that he would use a Blackstar for backup in case on of the Marshalls broke down. Something to keep in mind for people chasing the Mastodon sound on a budget.

For effects Kelliher used an AXE-FX2 run in to the front of his JCM800 for effects only. It was controlled via a Fractal Audio MFC101. He was also using the Digitech Jam Man to trigger samples and create ambience between songs.

The Guitar Zombie Gear Walkthrough video is below.

By the end of 2014 when Mastodon were back touring in the US Kelliher’s touring rig saw him move toward Friedman amplifiers. After touring with Alice in Chains Bill Kelliher was such a fan of Jerry Cantrell’s tone that he sought out Cantrell’s signature head and started using that as his primary touring amp. For his second amp Kelliher used a Friedman HBE 100-watt head.

The Friedman JJ-100 ran a 65-watt Celestion G12M-65 Creambacks loaded into a Friedman 4×12 cabinet while the Friedman HBE pushed 30-watt Celestions in an Orange 4×12.

Emperor of Sand (2016–2019)

At NAMM in early 2016 Friedman launched the highly anticipated Bill Kelliher signature amp – The Butterslax. There’d been murmurings of a signature for some time prior to the launch and reports of Kelliher seen playing some prototypes at shows. The Butterslax is a 3 channel 100-watt head powered by 4 EL-34 power tubes and 4 x 12AX7 preamp tubes

In June 2016 it was announced that Kelliher had left Gibson and was now endorsing ESP guitars. As a result two signature models were released, the ESP Bill Kelliher and the LTD BK-600. Both where LP single cut style guitars, 24.75″ scale and 22 frets. Both models were fitted with Kelliher’s signature Lace Sensor pickups – the ‘Dissonant Aggressor’s’.

In 2017 a third Kelliher signature guitar was announced, the ESP LTD Bill Kelliher Sparrowhawk. The Sparrowhawk has a body shape similar to the Gibson Firebird. It was also 24.75″ scale length and like the previous models also featured a TonePros bridge and tail piece. Unlike the previous models though, the Sparrowhawk came with Lace Sensor Divinator pickups. The Divinator’s being Kelliher’s second signature pickup from Lace Sensor.

In the Emperor of Sand ‘making of’ video there’s a lot of in studio footage of Bill Kelliher during recording. As you might expect at this point his vintage Les Paul Customs feature quite heavily as does his ESP Sparrowhawk signature. The First Act 9 string also makes an appearance.

For the recording of Emperor of Sands Kelliher relied on his ESP signature guitars as well as his fleet of vintage Gibson Les Paul Customs. The First Act 9 string guitar also made an appearance as well as a Gibson Acoustic.

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More to come…