“I wake up every morning thinking about what’s on my pedalboard” Adam Granduciel on his love of effects and the next The War On Drugs album
If you’ve ever listened to The War On Drugs, you’ve probably guessed that frontman and guitarist Adam Granduciel likes his effects pedals. But you only have to broach the topic with him for a moment before it becomes apparent that he doesn’t just like pedals – he loves pedals.
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“I wake up every morning thinking about what’s on my pedalboard,” he explains. “And I have so many pedalboards everywhere. I love that feeling of when you plug into one and just think, ‘Oh, that’s amazing!’”
The wonderfully dense, effected soundscapes that Granduciel has crafted to Grammy Winning-success across The War On Drugs’ discography is also notable for how heavily he leans not into the modern world of boutique effects, but the everyman excellence of the humble Boss pedal. Indeed, such is his love of Boss pedals, when we catch up with him backstage at the 2026 NAMM Show, he’s about to be honoured by Boss with a lifetime achievement award for his enduring and abiding love of the brand’s pedals – both new and old. It was a subject he was very keen to talk more about…
When did you first become aware of Boss pedals?
“I feel like, before even getting my own guitar, I was aware of Boss, because any picture you’d see when I started playing, of any band, on the floor you’d see like, yellow square, red square, purple square… y’know?
“Around this time, my friend Jeff’s dad, he had a red Washburn, a Boss RT digital effects system and a huge Peavey or whatever. And he encouraged me to play it. And the first time I played it, I couldn’t believe what I had experienced. All this chorus and distortion! So from the first time I played, I was just like I’ve got to get that sound. So I think pretty quickly I was aware of the gear that was making those things.
“I think I got my own guitar maybe a year later, and I bought Boss Flanger, and I borrowed someone’s DS-1. And then you know how it is, someone else has some other Boss pedal and so you plug into that and it’s amazing.
“And multi-effects were big then too – and they had an expression pedal! Man, I wanted one of those. But my mom was like, No, that’s too many! Just get one! So I got a flanger and maybe a wah. Boss is just one of those things that is synonymous with electric guitar playing for me.”
Obviously you could use anything at this point, what is it about Boss pedals that keeps you sticking with them?
“The sounds are just the best. I like an original 70s chorus, and then there’s an 80s one I use all the time, the pink Digital Dimension pedal, which I use on keyboards, guitar, and for re-amping. And then there’s the Slow Gear, which I use all the time, and the Dynamic Filter, which is like an auto-wah – there’s so many.
“Boss stuff, it’s all incredibly easy to figure out how to use. I was just thinking that because, [Adam starts playing around with a Roland drum machine on the desk in front of him] I can get this cooking in like, nine seconds, and it’s all just very intuitive. And that’s just the same with the Boss pedal. It just makes sense immediately, what you’re doing with it, yeah? And it’s always just been the most reliable thing, you know? Even the Boss tuner. If it’s not a Boss tuner, I don’t really trust it!”
You’re a guitar player who uses effects in such an involved but considered way, why do you love them so much?
“I’m not a guitar player who can just plug straight into a Marshall and that’s all I need – that’s not how I got into guitar. I’ve always been more into playing with like, delay and reverb. Or being like, ‘Oh, what does this modulation do?’ My style is about finding textures and ways to express myself with a guitar that feels like it’s an extension of my voice.”
Has that always been the case?
“Even when I started recording myself, it was on a Boss recorder that had all the effects sounds built into it. So I had a mic, and I would just plug the mic into the input and play the acoustic and through the headphones, it would sound like a rock guitar!
“You could add all the shit to it, and start coming up with worlds, you know? And it was a way of recording that, for me, was way cooler than, like a cassette four-track, because I didn’t have much gear. It was just like a guitar and recorder, really.”
You must still love the experimental side of pedals too…
“I have one rig at home that’s just like, seven chorus pedals with a wah at the end! Just to be like, ‘Maybe this could be something cool’. And then the studio, there’s all these different boards around. And always if I get bored, or the engineer’s like doing a mix, I’ll just start building a board! You know, get the Dual Lock! I don’t know, at this point, it’s just a way of life, you know?”
Is that experimentation maybe turning into a new The War On Drugs album?
“Yeah I’m almost done making a record, and we’re close to the end. I wanted to do something that’s not different, necessarily, in terms of the way it sounds, but something that’s trying to get back to the first couple of records I made.
“So it’s basically fully homemade. I mean, people always joke because I’m like, ‘I want to make a homemade record’. And they come to my house and my studio is like, vintage API and all my Neve stuff… and they’re like, ‘This is a homemade record?!’
“But the only way I could do this record is if I had all the time and the access to be able to do it the way I want. So, it’s coming along, but I just work on it all the time. It still sounds like a band, but there’s all sorts of stuff.”
Are there any new pedals that are heavily featuring on the new record?
“It’s always similar ones, like the Digital Dimension. I did get a Bi-Phase recently, a vintage one, so I put that on everything! I traded a whole bunch of stuff to a kid for a Bi-Phase!”
Finally then, if you could only have one Boss pedal, which one would it be?
“Oh, the Digital Dimension from the 80s. I put it on everything. It’s usually always on. I’ll have one at one setting and another one after a different setting. It just adds a glassiness. It’s not like a wobbly chorus, it’s like a very high-end shimmer. It just has something. It’s only four knobs, you know – but sometimes all of them are all the way up!”
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