From Guitar World · · 3m
Emma Ruth Rundle's nylon-string secret weapon
She sold the SG that defined her sound, tuned a classical guitar to drop A#, and built a full band around it.
In brief
She sold the SG that defined her sound, tuned a classical guitar to drop A#, and built a full band around it. A guitar is a tool, not an identity. Keep the one that serves the song, sell the one that doesn't, and don't assume nylon strings can't go heavy. Originally reported by Guitar World.
Dark folk that hits heavy
Six solo albums and collaborations with Dylan Carlson, Chelsea Wolfe and Thou built a blend of folk, ambient noise and metal that belongs to her alone.
The tone quest is personal
Finding the guitar that becomes yours is rarely about the perfect spec. Rundle frames it as a mix of taste, budget and whatever happens to be for sale nearby.
“It's partly to do with a 'tone quest,' financial means, and what access you have locally.”
Teles pick up the radio
Working in a guitar store let her cycle through the classics. Telecasters were too twangy and noisy, Les Pauls sounded great but weighed too much.
“every time I take a Fender into the studio it's picking up the radio!”
A $350 SG and a phone
She wanted low-end heft for dropped tunings with grit still intact. After trying Japanese SG copies, she bought an SG Special from a teenager who wanted the cash for a phone.
Guitars are tools
She sold that dented SG this year, along with her first guitar, a 1973 Fender Mustang. Living nomadically on little money made sentimentality expensive.
“At a certain point, if it's not serving you, you gotta make room for something else.”
Letting the band in
These Killing Times brings a full band back after five years of solo guitar and piano, with Nick Reinhart of Tera Melos and Gina Gleason of Baroness adding lead lines.
“But as I've gotten older I've become more relaxed, inviting other musicians in and asking them to use their voice.”
Nylon strings in drop A#
She now plays two Cordoba GK Pros, rosewood and maple necks for different tones, with the under-saddle piezo killing feedback live. Classical guitar, she says, is overlooked in heavy music.
“No-one would think a classical guitar could hold a drop A# tuning.”
A basic pedal palette
An EarthQuaker Palisades, Boss RV-5, DigiTech Hardwire RV-7 and a Line 6 multi-FX, split into a Roland Jazz Chorus and a Verellen combo for solid-state and tube tones at once.
The one she'll never sell
When an electric comes out now it's her Fender Jaguar Special Baritone HH. Short production run, and she owns two of them.
“Baritones mostly suck, but the HH intonates so well.”
Angst turned into fuel
Open about a two-decade struggle with addiction and now sober, she wanted to escape the grey mood of 2021's Engine of Hell. Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream showed her how.
“I wanted to address the issues that are dominating all of our lives but in a way that adds light and hope.”
A band as a metaphor
Five years of stripped-back solo shows were isolating and psychologically intense. Touring this autumn with friends turned the album's theme into something she can stand inside.
“Watching a band working together to make a powerful sound is a great metaphor for what we as people need to do.”
The one thing
A guitar is a tool, not an identity. Keep the one that serves the song, sell the one that doesn't, and don't assume nylon strings can't go heavy.
