# 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.
- Title: Emma Ruth Rundle's nylon-string secret weapon · Guitar World
- Summary: 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…
- Keywords: guitar, emma ruth rundle, classical guitar, gear, heavy music, Emma, Ruth, Rundle's, nylon-string, secret, weapon, Guitar World
- Source: Guitar World — https://guitarworld.com/artists/guitarists/emma-ruth-rundle-these-killing-times
- Published: 2026-09-14T12:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: guitar, emma ruth rundle, classical guitar, gear, heavy music
## 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.
## Key takeaway

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.