Kerry McCoy of Deafheaven is the subject of the current Premier Guitar Rig Rundown, filmed at Satellite Music Hall in Memphis on 18 October.
Rig Rundown is a format with a narrow audience and an unusual value. A guitarist stands next to his own gear and explains what each piece is for, which means the sound of a record gets taken apart by the person who built it rather than described by somebody listening to it.
For this band that is a more loaded exercise than usual. Deafheaven have spent fifteen years being argued about by people who cannot agree what they are, and most of that argument comes down to tone: the wall of guitar that sounds like black metal from one angle and like something else entirely from another. McCoy is the man who makes it, and a camera pointed at his pedals is the most literal answer anybody is going to get.
The band are also about to be heard by a room that did not come for them. They open for Interpol in March, eight dates through theatres and arenas from New Orleans to Sayreville, which is a different kind of audience from the one that followed the records.