Joey Landreth

Joey Landreth is the frontman and guitarist for The Bros Landreth, a player Revv describes as "renowned throughout the music community for his expressive touch, roots-rock tone, and world-class slide playing"¹. He comes from Winnipeg, Canada, and Origin Effects, introducing him in 2018, wrote that he has "the whole package; technical as well as fiery chops, tone for days, tear-jerking vocal chords, and genuine charisma"². He has multiple Juno Awards to his name, and Revv notes a Grammy-winning endorsement of his songwriting by Bonnie Raitt¹.

Alongside his playing career, Landreth has become one of the most signature-heavy guitarists in effects pedals, with his name on overdrives, a fuzz, and a string of endorsements across several makers.

A Bluesbreaker-style overdrive sound

The pedal most closely tied to Landreth's sound is the Jackson Audio Golden Boy, an overdrive plus boost pedal he co-designed with the company¹⁰⁴. The story starts with the Broken Arrow, a Jackson Audio pedal he toured with on his board for a few months before approaching the company's Brad Jackson with an idea¹¹.

That preference is consistent across everything he has said about overdrives. In the same interview he said that "tone-wise I've never been a huge Tube Screamer guy"¹¹, and Guitar Pedal X reported that he prefers "the warmer, more open, less compressed tones of the Blues Breaker circuit to the somewhat harder-clipping Tube Screamer circuit that the Broken Arrow is based on"¹². In the Golden Boy's manual, he put it in his own words:

In a Sweetwater demo video, Brad Jackson and John Souki described the collaboration as creating "his ultimate transparent overdrive"¹⁴. Landreth's own verdict on the finished pedal, given to Guitar.com's reviewer, was blunt: "even if I wasn't associated with this pedal I'd be using it, it just has 'that' sound," adding that "It's a must-have for the working guitar player"¹⁵.

His favorite clipping option on the Broken Arrow was the Magenta type, and Guitar Pedal X noted he seems to have brought that forward to the Golden Boy, which is pictured with his favorite Drive and Boost mode combination, Magenta plus Aqua¹².

The relationship with Jackson Audio goes back further than the Golden Boy. He first got to know the company through their Prism pedal, and he contributed ideas for their Bloom compressor and went to Nashville to shoot launch videos for it¹⁵¹¹. In 2023 he collaborated with Jackson Audio again on the Golden Boy Mini, a streamlined and more affordable version of what MusicRadar called the company's best-selling pedal so far, tuned toward "the kind of sounds Joey liked to use with his original Golden Boy"⁵. Delicious Audio reported that Landreth was also involved in the design of the Mini¹⁶.

From The Bros Landreth to the RevivalDRIVE

Joey Landreth, guitarist with The Bros Landreth, visited the Origin Effects booth at NAMM 2020, where he tried the Tremolo and Hot Rod pedals, appearing alongside players including Josh Smith, Ariel Posen, Rabea, AndyDemos, Graham Coxon and David Grissom⁴.

His reason for keeping a pedal like that around, as he told Origin Effects:

He also turned up at the Origin Effects booth at NAMM 2020 to try the Tremolo and Hot Rod¹⁸.

LAA NV81 boosts and the JAM Retrovibe

On an episode of That Pedal Show, the presenters recalled that Landreth had two LAA NV81 boosts on his board when he visited, and that he used them "just to warm up the outputs of his digitalness"¹⁹.

JAM Pedals is the maker with the deepest footprint on his board. The company lists him among its artists, and he has given the maker his own descriptions of several of its pedals¹²:

JAM Pedals lists him as a user of the RetroVibe, including the "Popped Art" RetroVibe mk.4²², and of the Harmonious Monk mk.2²¹. He is also on the maker's wider artist roster²³²⁴.

Beyond JAM Pedals, his endorsements spread across several smaller makers:

• Rainger FX lists him as an artist, with the Reverb-x and the Deep Space Pulsar among his pedals²⁵³. Guitar World has also noted him among Rainger's listed artists²⁶.
• Demedash Effects lists him among its artists, associated with The Brothers Landreth²⁷.
• Mythos Pedals makes the Joey Landreth Mjolnir Overdrive, a variant of the standard Mjolnir inspired by the very first Mjolnir that Mythos's Zach built for Joey soon after they first met⁶. Mythos says the pedal "has a beautiful compression and voice that is true to what Joey looks for in a K-Style overdrive"⁶. RockBoard's PedalPedia also lists the Mythos High Road as a Joey Landreth signature pedal⁷.
• DanDrive makes the Bonk Machine, a Joey Landreth signature fuzz⁸.

The REVV Dirtdog signature overdrive

In February 2026, Revv announced the Dirtdog, a Joey Landreth signature overdrive⁹. Revv co-founder Dan Trudeau collaborated with Landreth on the design, which Delicious Audio described as an attempt "to capture that volatile, 'about-to-explode' magic in a rugged, all-analog pedal"⁹.

Revv builds the Dirt Dog in Canada, describing it as "Manufactured by a small, dedicated team of engineers" and marketing it as a vintage overdrive¹.

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