Guns N' Roses Chooses SoloDallas EX Tower on 2017 World Tour

In another milestone for the emerging gear company in Southern California, Guns N' Roses is officially using the SoloDallas EX Tower across the globe this year as the band continues their groundbreaking Not In This Lifetime Tour.

This relationship began in the fall of 2016 in Los Angeles, when SoloDallas first met with Richard Fortus, who had been anointed as an official band member to share guitar duties with Slash on stage and in the studio. SoloDallas presented Richard with his first Towers, which he had been turned on to after extended dialogue on tour in 2016 with Mr. Angus Young, guitarist for AC/DC.

  • "So, I got hip to these the last leg of the tour [in 2016]. The front of House [FOH] guy completely lost his mind, just fell in love with it, because what it does is: it's a very subtle effect in a way, where it's a pre-amp, it shapes, it colors your sound. So it shifts the mid-range, and it puts it perfectly where you want it. It becomes much more aggressive, and it gives the sound, the tone teeth. And that's really ...It's a subtle thing to somebody that's not a player, I guess...but it's essential when you're missing that, and that's what's so awesome about this. Everybody in the room freaked out on it when we started using it. The FOH guy came in- Remember? He came in and was like, 'What did you guys do? Whatever you did, that's awesome.'"
  • View the full 2017 Richard Fortus interview here:


A direct descendant of the legendary Schaffer Vega Diversity System (SVDS), the EX Tower is also being used internationally this year by Keith Urban, Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown, Blackberry Smoke and other preeminent artists.

The first generation of SoloDallas Towers were presented to Mr. Angus Young in May 2014, when Fil "SoloDallas" Olivieri flew from NYC with Ken Schaffer, who has been friends with Angus since the mid 1970s, when Ken was building Angus the SVDS wireless units which became an immortal part of Angus Young's bombastic, electrifying (but now resistant to electrocution) stage show. Arriving in Vancouver, Ken was able to reconnect with Angus and the band, and Fil had the opportunity to talk life and guitar wth his idol, whose seminal Back in Black album inspired the three-decade SoloDallas quest for tone.

Hand-built in the mountains of Colorado, the newest 2017 SoloDallas EX Tower iteration is the result of constant dialogue between SD artists, engineers and creatives. As Richard explains, "This has become the key to my rig, it's become essential. I have to have a backup to it. I have to have a backup amp, and I have to have a backup SoloDallas. If I don't have one, it would be a very bad night.

SoloDallas Towers are available worldwide at solodallas.com

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Guitar World Staff

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