Wayne Sermon

In this photo of Wayne Sermon playing with Imagine Dragons at SXSW music festival in 2012, he's wielding a Fender Big Block 66 Jazzmaster in 3-tone sunburst. The block inlays on the neck give it away as this particular model. The pickguard looks to have been swapped out for a Gold Anodized Jazzmaster Pickguard.

At 1:19 in the video you can see Wayne playing a black Fender Strat.

He used a golden version of this guitar at Glastonbury in 2014. It can be seen best at 2:32 and 2:55.

In this photo of Wayne Sermon's pedal board, source from the Rig Rundown of Imagine Dragons, a Timmy overdrive pedal sits on the top-left corner.

Wayne uses this guitar live on the song I'm so sorry.

In this Facebook photo posted by Matchless Amplifiers, Wayne Sermon can be seen using a Matchless 30/15 Combo Amp (Night Vision Tour 2013).

In this Instagram picture, you can see Wayne Sermon using the submitted item.

In this video of Imagine Dragons performing "Stand By Me" in a tribute to Ben E. King, Wayne Sermon is seen using a Gibson L-5 with a double cutaway, which can be clearly seen throughout most of the video, especially during the solo starting at 2:10

5 seconds into this video, Wayne Sermon's guitar strings are revealed. He uses Elixir Electric Nickel Plated Steel with NANOWEB Coating, with a custom gauge .011, .014, .018, .032, .042, .052 (a hybrid between the Medium and Heavy varieties).

Later in the video around 4:13, in answer to “Why do you play Elixir strings,” Wayne Sermon says, “I play Elixir strings because they sound the best. They just sound the fullest… there’s something thick about the sound that I haven’t found in other strings. That’s why I play them.”

A blog article explains how Wayne Sermon uses a custom built Centaur pedal:

"It’s a long story as to how I got hooked up with Imagine Dragons, but last year I got the opportunity to build a custom Centaur clone for their guitarist, Wayne Sermon. He was putting together a new live rig from the ground up and wanted to include a Centaur, but didn’t want to give up the pedalboard real estate for his original unit. I designed a PCB that would fit into a 1590B-sized enclosure and then built the pedal with an almost antique-looking distressed finish. "

"After I built the first one, he tested it against his real Centaur. He couldn’t hear any difference between them, and this one is about 1/3 the size, so the real Centaur got the boot. He then asked for another one for his secondary rig. So he actually has two of these now."

The original blog article can be found here.

In this Instagram picture, you can see Wayne Sermon using the submitted item.

"Wayne Sermon plays several different BiLT guitars throughout the set. These offset beauties are highly customized with features Sermon specifically needs to create certain sounds from ID albums. His No. 1 is a gold-plated Volaré loaded with a pair of Lindy Fralin Twangmaster humbuckers. Each guitar is strung up with Elixir .011–.052 strings and Sermon uses Dunlop 88 mm 50th Anniversary Gold nylon picks."

-Premier Guitar; Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons

"Sermon’s BiLT Relevator is finished in shoreline gold and features both an MXR Carbon Copy and BiLT’s own fuzz circuit built into the body along with a Sustainiac in the neck position. Sermon can control the parameters of the effects via a wealth of buttons, switches, and controls that are accessible on the front of the guitar. There’s a Pedaltrain Volto on his strap that supplies power to the pedals via the stereo cable. He keeps this guitar tuned a half-step down from standard."

-Premier Guitar; Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons

"Sermon’s BiLT Relevator is finished in shoreline gold and features both an MXR Carbon Copy and BiLT’s own fuzz circuit built into the body along with a Sustainiac in the neck position."

-Premier Guitar; Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons

As such, it should be understood that it is built into his guitar, not on his pedal board.

For the acoustic tunes, Sermon grabs either his Gibson J-35 or Gibson LG-2 American Eagle (shown here), both flattops have LR Baggs M1 pickups. The LG-2 is kept in standard tuning and used on “Trouble,” “Thief,” and “Release,” while the J-35 is tuned a half-step down and is featured on the bridge to “I Bet My Life.”

-Premier Guitar; Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons

In this photo of Wayne Sermon's pedal board, source from the Rig Rundown of Imagine Dragons, the King of Tone overdrive sits to the right of the noise reduction pedal.

In this second photo of Wayne Sermon's other pedal board, source from the Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons, the Vibrato sits just above the Superego.

Wayne Sermon uses the Aion Refractor Professional Overdrive, as detailed in the Aion Electronics Build Reports. Kevin, the owner of Aion Electronics, custom-built this overdrive pedal for him, inspired by the Klon Centaur design.

In this Instagram photo posted by Imagine Dragons, Ben and Wayne Sermon can be seen "nerding out" with some studio gear. To Wayne's left is an Akai MPK mini keyboard.

In this article, the builder says that Wayne is using an Aion Compressor. There's a photo (used as the source) of the pedalboard taken in December 2013 during a rehearsal which shows the Aion Compressor along the top row.

Also, in the video for "Radioactive" on SNL (February 2014), you can see a good top shot of the pedalboard at around 2:38 where the light-up knobs are pretty clear.

Lastly, in this Premier Guitar interview from March 2015, there's a list of gear used which includes the Aion Compressor as well.

"Wayne Sermon plays several different BiLT guitars throughout the set. These offset beauties are highly customized with features Sermon specifically needs to create certain sounds from ID albums. His No. 1 is a gold-plated Volaré loaded with a pair of Lindy Fralin Twangmaster humbuckers. Each guitar is strung up with Elixir .011–.052 strings and Sermon uses Dunlop 88 mm 50th Anniversary Gold nylon picks."

-Premier Guitar; Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons

In this Rig Rundown featuring Wayne Sermon of Imagine Dragons, Wayne identifies a Suhr humbucker that he uses on his gold-plated Bilt guitar.

For the acoustic tunes, Sermon grabs either his Gibson J-35 or Gibson LG-2 American Eagle (shown here), both flattops have LR Baggs M1 pickups. The LG-2 is kept in standard tuning and used on “Trouble,” “Thief,” and “Release,” while the J-35 is tuned a half-step down and is featured on the bridge to “I Bet My Life.”

-Premier Guitar; Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons

For the acoustic tunes, Sermon grabs either his Gibson J-35 or Gibson LG-2 American Eagle (shown here), both flattops have LR Baggs M1 pickups. The LG-2 is kept in standard tuning and used on “Trouble,” “Thief,” and “Release,” while the J-35 is tuned a half-step down and is featured on the bridge to “I Bet My Life.”

-Premier Guitar; Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons

"Along with the vintage Voxes, Sermon runs an angry Friedman Smallbox 50. "

-Premier Guitar; Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons

In this second photo of Wayne Sermon's other pedal board, source from the Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons, a Micro Vibe by Voodoo Lab sits on the far right side of the board.

In this second photo of Wayne Sermon's other pedal board, source from the Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons, a POG2 sits below the Micro Vibe.

In this second photo of Wayne Sermon's other pedal board, source from the Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons, the Sampson Hightop pedal sits directly at the center of his board.

In this last photo of Wayne Sermon's third pedal board, source from the Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons, he has an multi-effects pedal made by Eventide on the bottom-right corner.

"During a typical show, Sermon needs to cover a lot of ground. After going through a Shure ULXD4 wireless unit, the signal hits a Sound Sculpture Switchblade GL before feeding one of three Eventide products: a pair of 7600 units and a H9."

-Premier Guitar; Rig Rundown with Imagine Dragons