Rigged: Meek is Murder Guitarist Mike Keller

Hey dudes, Keller from Meek is Murder here. I sing and play guitar. This is the stuff I play live.

I use Gibson SG Standard guitars with passive humbuckers. They have 95% of the tone of Les Pauls but half the weight. I also prefer the dual cutaways and pickup selector placement of SGs over LPs. We play in Drop C# so D’Addario .11-.52’s are the perfect balance of brightness and heaviness.

When I was in The Red Chord I fell in love with the Peavey 6505+, but I always wanted an original block-letter 5150. So that’s what I have now, and it is truly awesome. The over-the-top gain of that thing sounds grotesquely heavy through my Orange 4×12 straight cab, whose former owner was the guitar player of Helmet. I also run an Orange Rockerverb MKII 100W through a Marshall 1960 4×12 slant, which adds the mids and clarity that the Peavey lacks. The two amps round each other out and sound really damn cool together.

I use Winged-C tubes in both amps, which are produced in the original Svetlana factory in St. Petersburg, Russia. They’re kind of hard to get but I find they make a noticeable difference in warmth and clarity over more common brands.

Nothing special in the pedals depot. Just the Boss Tuner and Noise Suppressor(s) that every guitarist should have. I have an A/B switch in order to run two amps, and an Ibanez Tube Screamer to give the Rockerverb a little more dirt. I also use a Boss Loop Station for the unintended purpose of playing samples in between songs with the stomp of a pedal.

Finally, I bring my own Shure Beta 58 mic to shows, because sharing microphones is kinda gross, you know?

– Mike Keller / Meek is Murder

Catch Meek is Murder on tour:

11/30 – Rochester, NY @ Monty’s Krown w/ Vilipend, Burn Everything
12/1 – Johnson City, NY @ The Beagle Pub w/ Vilipend
12/8 – New York, NY @ ABC No Rio w/ Psychic Limb
12/17 – New York, NY @ Lit Lounge w/ I Am Heresy, Tiger Flowers