Corrosion Of Conformity

The New Orleans groove lords talk us through the tough toll they take on their part-time doublecuts

- Orleans Groove

Corrosion Of Conformity guitarists Woody Weatherman and Pepper Keenan think similarly when touring overseas. Afraid of damaging their favorite instruments, they bring along what they call “the weekenders” double-cut electrics from LTD and the ESP custom shop that have seen more than their fair share of aggressive playing.

While Keenan uses a lot more effects than Weatherman’s rusticly simple board, both lean hard on their amps for tone. For Weatherman, that means Mesa Boogie’s Rectifier series, minus a few cables ripped out, while Keenan is now and forever a devotee of Orange Amplifiers’ discontinued Thunderverb 50.

But it’s their guitars that take the beating. Keenan strings his with a wound G for extra purchase and uses a bass pick. As Weatherman says as somewhat of an understatement: they attack their guitars - “we beat the hell out of them” is far more accurate. It’s just as well then that ESP built them tough.

1 WOODY’S RIG ESP CUSTOM

“I’ve always played an SG-style guitar, but I’ve had these ESPs for, shit, 20-something years. Angus Young, Tony Iommi, you can’t go wrong! Those were early influences – plus the look of the SG, you can’t beat it.

“Pepper and I both used to have Gibsons. I’ve still got several at the house, but it got to where some of the tunings we were using and just the way we were playing, attacking the guitar, we were having trouble keeping those old things in tune. We really needed something that was a thru-body neck, that was as solid as a rock, and ESP came through for us. You can beat the hell out of ’em, and they pretty much stay in tune.