Jared Followill

Throughout this video of Kings of Leon performing "Closer" live on Letterman, Jared Followill can be seen playing a black Gibson Thunderbird bass. You can have a good look at it at the 3:00 mark, where you can see he has on it a custom pickguard with "KOL" on it.

At 3:18 you can see the bridge of the guitar is gold, as it is on the Gibson Thunderbird Bicentennial Reissue version of this bass.

the was the first bass that jared started using when kings of leon started. you can get a good view of the guitar at 0:07 into the video

In this photo of Jared Followill performing live, he can be seen playing an Epiphone Thunderbird Classic-IV Bass Guitar in an Alpine White finish.

Jared plays a precision bass in the music video for four kicks

Here is Jared using a jazz bass in this picture. It could be a Jaco sig or just a jazz bass with no pickguard, I cant really tell if it's fretless or not

In this interview from Bassplayer, Jared Followill is asked about his amp setup. He says, "I have my live sound pretty much dialed in, but when we get into the studio and the engineers bring out some sort of new rig, I get totally sucked into it. I basically try to get the crunchy sound I get with my live rig, an Ampeg SVT Classic with two 8x10 cabs."

This photo is from the official Audio Kitchen site, and shows Kings of Leon bass player Jared Followill using the Audio Kitchen Base Chopper amp head (original source here: http://www.audiokitchen.co.uk/project/jared-followill-kings-of-leon/)

The official TC Electronic website lists the BH250 as one of the products he uses. The article says, "What is more, the BH250 bass amp and Flashback x4 are always backstage with Jared before shows."

Talking about Kings of Leon’s album "Mechanical Bull," the official TC Electronic site says Jared "...Recently ... added the 'Hall of Fame Reverb' to his pedal board." Original source link here.

Listed on his TC Electronic artist profile page. Quote from the article: "Seeing how reverbs were Jared’s most used effect type for the recording of “Mechanical Bull”, TC effects are now a key element in Kings of Leon’s live sound. What is more, the BH250 bass amp and Flashback x4 are always backstage with Jared before shows." Original source found here.

Listed as one of the pedals used by Jared Followill on the TC Electronic site. Original source found here.

Jared Followill's Boss ME-50B Bass Multiple Effects Pedal can be seen around 0:32 in this video of his bass gear rundown. Jared's guitar tech then goes on to demonstrate how the opening bass riff of the song Closer is achieved, by using the pedal of the ME-50B to pitch the sound up.

In this video, Jared Followill's guitar/bass tech says that Jared "runs a bunch of effects, you can tell we've run everything through a GCX Ground Control Switcher," which refers to the Voodoo Lab GCX Guitar Audio Switcher (0:18 into the video).

At 0:46 their guitar tech is shown demonstrating the Boss ME-50 for the beginning riff of Closer.

Used on the bass for "Sex on Fire", stated by Only by the Night producer Jacques King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview.

"With regards to 'Sex On Fire', the bass was recorded with a DI and a Neumann U47 on the SVT cabinet, close but not right up to the speaker. The microphone on the bass is usually at its upper range of ability, and because the U47 is a tube microphone you get a little bit of tube squash, with the harmonics nearly going into distortion. A lot of times in rock & roll, the bass is really clean and you have to fuzz it up. Both the DI and the 47 went through a Neve 1081 preamp and then an [Teletronix] LA2A compressor, plus an old Dbx 160 on the DI. I also used a very old subharmonic synthesizer, the Dbx Disco Boombox, on the DI. Jared plays a lot of melodic stuff very high up the neck of his bass, and to be able to keep the weight of the track I synthesized some additional low end."

Used on the bass for "Sex on Fire", stated by Only by the Night producer Jacques King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview.

"With regards to 'Sex On Fire', the bass was recorded with a DI and a Neumann U47 on the SVT cabinet, close but not right up to the speaker. The microphone on the bass is usually at its upper range of ability, and because the U47 is a tube microphone you get a little bit of tube squash, with the harmonics nearly going into distortion. A lot of times in rock & roll, the bass is really clean and you have to fuzz it up. Both the DI and the 47 went through a Neve 1081 preamp and then an [Teletronix] LA2A compressor, plus an old Dbx 160 on the DI. I also used a very old subharmonic synthesizer, the Dbx Disco Boombox, on the DI. Jared plays a lot of melodic stuff very high up the neck of his bass, and to be able to keep the weight of the track I synthesized some additional low end."

Used for the bass on Because of the Times, as stated in this July 1, 2007 Mix Online interview with producer Ethan Johns.

Johns used the modified Trident to track and mix. He recorded to a Studer 24-track aligned at +6 for 499 running at 30 ips, and mixed to a Studer 2-track. He went with Helios mic pre's and Fairchild compression for the guitars, EMI mic pre's for the drums and Universal Audio 610 pre's for the bass mic (a Neumann U67) and the vocals.

Used on "Sex on Fire", as stated by Only by the Night producer Jacquire King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview. An image of the settings can be found here.

• Bass: AMS delay, Sound Toys Echoboy, Empirical Labs Distressor, Chandler TG1, Dbx Disco Boombox

"On the Mix window screen you can see that there are bass DI, bass amp, bass AMS and bass delay tracks. The AMS is a delay that I applied at Blackbird and that I then printed to Pro Tools. The delay is the Echoboy delay, which I added during mixing. The idea was to get a different texture than I could with the AMS delay. Both delays had different delay times, different qualities of sound, and different feedback and modulation effects, and the idea was to spread them out and fatten up the sound, give it some space without putting a reverb or something poky–sounding on it. By spreading the bass out a bit you also make it sound bigger. In addition, there's some Distressor and TG1 compression and some EQ on the bass, as well as some more subharmonic synthesis, again using the DBX Disco Boombox. I have a slightly more modern version of the box."

The item can be seen as a Pro Tools mix channel label in this image from the same interview.

The final Pro Tools Session included four bass tracks: the original miked and DI'd recordings, and duplicates treated with AMS hardware and Sound Toys (right) software delays.

Around 0:25 in this video of Jared Followill's bass rig walkthrough, his guitar/bass tech shows that Jared uses the Voodoo Lab Ground Control Pro MIDI Foot Controller out on the floor, next to his tuner and an extra reverb pedal.

Used on the bass for "Sex on Fire", stated by Only by the Night producer Jacques King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview.

"I also put an AMS delay and a Cooper Time Cube on the bass, just to give it a little bit more ambience. The latter is something made by Urei. It's a tiny box with a speaker at one end and a mic at the other, and you get 11–14 milliseconds of weird, hollow, echoey delay/reverb. It gives a nice early reflection type of texture. Because the delay is so short, it also gives a chorus–filter like effect."

King also mentions the Time Cube in this interview with Universal Audio.

What's really exciting about the UA stuff is, for instance, I hadn't used the UA plug-ins when I was making the [Kings of Leon] Only by the Night record, but I was using a Cooper Time Cube. When I'm in those situations, I get something set up on the console, and then when I do my transfer from the 2", I also transfer the effects that I've set up. Like if I put a Cooper Time Cube on a guitar track, I'll transfer that in. For the last couple of records, these plug-ins are so good that now I don't have to have those things either rented, or set up, and printed in. I'm using the plug-in.

Used on the bass for "Sex on Fire", stated by Only by the Night producer Jacques King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview.

"With regards to 'Sex On Fire', the bass was recorded with a DI and a Neumann U47 on the SVT cabinet, close but not right up to the speaker. The microphone on the bass is usually at its upper range of ability, and because the U47 is a tube microphone you get a little bit of tube squash, with the harmonics nearly going into distortion. A lot of times in rock & roll, the bass is really clean and you have to fuzz it up. Both the DI and the 47 went through a Neve 1081 preamp and then an [Teletronix] LA2A compressor, plus an old Dbx 160 on the DI. I also used a very old subharmonic synthesizer, the Dbx Disco Boombox, on the DI. Jared plays a lot of melodic stuff very high up the neck of his bass, and to be able to keep the weight of the track I synthesized some additional low end."

Used on the bass for "Sex on Fire", stated by Only by the Night producer Jacques King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview.

"With regards to 'Sex On Fire', the bass was recorded with a DI and a Neumann U47 on the SVT cabinet, close but not right up to the speaker. The microphone on the bass is usually at its upper range of ability, and because the U47 is a tube microphone you get a little bit of tube squash, with the harmonics nearly going into distortion. A lot of times in rock & roll, the bass is really clean and you have to fuzz it up. Both the DI and the 47 went through a Neve 1081 preamp and then an [Teletronix] LA2A compressor, plus an old Dbx 160 on the DI. I also used a very old subharmonic synthesizer, the Dbx Disco Boombox, on the DI. Jared plays a lot of melodic stuff very high up the neck of his bass, and to be able to keep the weight of the track I synthesized some additional low end."

Used on the bass for "Sex on Fire", stated by Only by the Night producer Jacques King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview.

"With regards to 'Sex On Fire', the bass was recorded with a DI and a Neumann U47 on the SVT cabinet, close but not right up to the speaker. The microphone on the bass is usually at its upper range of ability, and because the U47 is a tube microphone you get a little bit of tube squash, with the harmonics nearly going into distortion. A lot of times in rock & roll, the bass is really clean and you have to fuzz it up. Both the DI and the 47 went through a Neve 1081 preamp and then an [Teletronix] LA2A compressor, plus an old Dbx 160 on the DI. I also used a very old subharmonic synthesizer, the Dbx Disco Boombox, on the DI. Jared plays a lot of melodic stuff very high up the neck of his bass, and to be able to keep the weight of the track I synthesized some additional low end."

Used on "Sex on Fire", as stated by Only by the Night producer Jacquire King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview.

• Bass: AMS delay, Sound Toys Echoboy, Empirical Labs Distressor, Chandler TG1, Dbx Disco Boombox

"On the Mix window screen you can see that there are bass DI, bass amp, bass AMS and bass delay tracks. The AMS is a delay that I applied at Blackbird and that I then printed to Pro Tools. The delay is the Echoboy delay, which I added during mixing. The idea was to get a different texture than I could with the AMS delay. Both delays had different delay times, different qualities of sound, and different feedback and modulation effects, and the idea was to spread them out and fatten up the sound, give it some space without putting a reverb or something poky–sounding on it. By spreading the bass out a bit you also make it sound bigger. In addition, there's some Distressor and TG1 compression and some EQ on the bass, as well as some more subharmonic synthesis, again using the DBX Disco Boombox. I have a slightly more modern version of the box."

The item can be seen in this image from the same interview.

Used on "Sex on Fire", as stated by Only by the Night producer Jacquire King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview.

• Bass: AMS delay, Sound Toys Echoboy, Empirical Labs Distressor, Chandler TG1, Dbx Disco Boombox

"On the Mix window screen you can see that there are bass DI, bass amp, bass AMS and bass delay tracks. The AMS is a delay that I applied at Blackbird and that I then printed to Pro Tools. The delay is the Echoboy delay, which I added during mixing. The idea was to get a different texture than I could with the AMS delay. Both delays had different delay times, different qualities of sound, and different feedback and modulation effects, and the idea was to spread them out and fatten up the sound, give it some space without putting a reverb or something poky–sounding on it. By spreading the bass out a bit you also make it sound bigger. In addition, there's some Distressor and TG1 compression and some EQ on the bass, as well as some more subharmonic synthesis, again using the DBX Disco Boombox. I have a slightly more modern version of the box."

The item can be seen in this image from the same interview.

Used on "Sex on Fire", as stated by Only by the Night producer Jacquire King in this December 2008 Sound on Sound interview.

• Bass: AMS delay, Sound Toys Echoboy, Empirical Labs Distressor, Chandler TG1, Dbx Disco Boombox

"On the Mix window screen you can see that there are bass DI, bass amp, bass AMS and bass delay tracks. The AMS is a delay that I applied at Blackbird and that I then printed to Pro Tools. The delay is the Echoboy delay, which I added during mixing. The idea was to get a different texture than I could with the AMS delay. Both delays had different delay times, different qualities of sound, and different feedback and modulation effects, and the idea was to spread them out and fatten up the sound, give it some space without putting a reverb or something poky–sounding on it. By spreading the bass out a bit you also make it sound bigger. In addition, there's some Distressor and TG1 compression and some EQ on the bass, as well as some more subharmonic synthesis, again using the DBX Disco Boombox. I have a slightly more modern version of the box."

The item can be seen as a Pro Tools mix channel label in this image from the same interview.

The final Pro Tools Session included four bass tracks: the original miked and DI'd recordings, and duplicates treated with AMS hardware and Sound Toys (right) software delays.

Used for the bass on Because of the Times, as stated in this July 1, 2007 Sound on Sound interview with producer Ethan Johns.

Johns used the modified Trident to track and mix. He recorded to a Studer 24-track aligned at +6 for 499 running at 30 ips, and mixed to a Studer 2-track. He went with Helios mic pre's and Fairchild compression for the guitars, EMI mic pre's for the drums and Universal Audio 610 pre's for the bass mic (a Neumann U67) and the vocals.