Preacher Stone’s Darrell Whitt & Ben Robinson: Gear, Grit & the “By The Horns” UK Tour
There’s a certain kind of magic that happens when a band is truly road-tested. By the time Preacher Stone rolled into The Louisiana in Bristol for the final night of their “By The Horns” UK tour, guitarists Darrell Whitt and Ben Robinson had been through 11 dates in 12 days (or is it 12 in 13?), and you’d never have known it.
Chris Archela caught up with the pair on stage after soundcheck to talk gear, songwriting, and what it takes to bring a full southern rock sound across the Atlantic with nothing but a carry-on’s worth of goodwill and a stripped down pedalboard.
Stripping It Back for the Road
Anyone who has seen Preacher Stone on their home turf knows the band doesn’t do things by halves. Back in the States, both Darrell and Ben run Blackstar Venue 3 100-watt heads in a true stereo configuration, splitting a 4×12 cabinet down the middle for two separate amplified signals hitting at once. It’s a big, bold setup built for big, bold rooms.
For the UK run, however, practicality won out. Flying with gear has a way of focusing the mind, and both guitarists made the call to streamline around the Blackstar Amped 2 – a compact unit that packs in a tuner, delay, modulation and a boost channel. Pedal boards were trimmed, cases were lightened, and the tone, remarkably, remained intact.
“It allows me to basically wipe my pedal board,” Ben explains. “And then I have everything I would have at home.”
The Guitars
Darrell’s weapon of choice on this tour was a Gibson SG Custom, acquired just last November and, until this tour at least, scratch-free. Aside from repositioning his volume knob and output jack and swapping in Hipshot locking tuners, it’s completely stock.
Strings are a custom GHS Boomers set, a 9.5 to 44 gauge, tuned half a step down with frequent drops to drop D.
Ben, meanwhile, travels with “Goldilocks” – a 2023 Gibson Les Paul VOS60 that has, by his own admission, been his number one guitar from the moment he got it.
The pick guard is off, the strings are 11s, and the tailpiece wrap is done the way Billy Gibbons told him to do it. That’s all you really need to know.
“It doesn’t matter what the situation is, the guitar just always delivers,” Ben says. “It makes me feel like I’m at home.”
Writing on the Road
Gear aside, what came through most clearly in our conversation was just how naturally music seems to flow within Preacher Stone. Both Darrell and Ben described a songwriting process that is almost entirely instinct-driven – riffs captured on a phone at 2am, ideas passed around the band, and songs that take on a life of their own once everyone is in the room together.
Darrell, who has been with the band for just over a year, came into a group he already knew well. Preacher Stone and his previous band had shared bills and festival stages for years before he officially joined, which meant the transition felt less like an audition and more like a natural next step.
“We were friends long before we were ever in a band together,” Ben reflects. “That made it organic.”
By their own reckoning, the band had sketched out enough ideas on the “By The Horns” tour alone to fill two records.
Whether those ideas make it onto the next Preacher Stone release remains to be seen – but if the energy in that Bristol room was anything to go by, the well is nowhere near running dry.
