Too Many Knobs? Perfect. Shea Sterner of THISHEAVYEARTH

About this episode

Blake Wyland interviews Shea Sterner about his journey in building unique music gear and the intricacies of the music technology industry.

This week on The Tone Mob Podcast, Blake hangs with Shea Sterner of thisheavyearth, a Portland-based builder making heavy pedals, brutal solid-state amps, and gear that looks like it crawled directly out of a fantasy-metal record sleeve. Shea shares his path from punk and metal scenes in Pennsylvania, to recording experiments in Texas, to learning repairs and circuit design in Salt Lake City, and eventually launching This Heavy Earth in Portland. The conversation gets into acid-etched pedals, self-taught PCB design, the FleshRot amp and preamp world, Ampeg VH140C inspiration, HM-2 chainsaw tones, baritone guitars, and why solid state deserves a much louder seat at the table. They also dig into building a gear company with your spouse, NAMM stories, fantasy artwork, plugins, small-business chaos, and the joy of making sounds that can swing from beautiful to absolutely disgusting with a single stomp. Check out the brand's offerings HERE https://www.thisheavyearth.com/ Support The Show And Connect! The Text Chat is back! Hit me up at (503) 751-8577 You can also help out with your gear buying habits by purchasing stuff from…

People in this episode

Host: Blake Wyland

Guest: Shea Sterner

Topics covered

• gear building
• music technology
• pedal design
• solid-state amps
• small business
• recording
• circuit design

Keywords

• pedals
• amps
• circuit design
• music gear
• solid state
• NAMM
• fantasy artwork

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: THISHEAVYEARTH

Products: FleshRot amp, Ampeg VH140C, HM-2, baritone guitars

Places: Portland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Salt Lake City

More episodes of The Tone Mob Podcast

• The Sleeping’s Douglas Robinson Woke Up a Guitar Player · May 27, 2026 · 1h 6m
• MARK MORTON!!!!!! · May 18, 2026 · 1h 5m
• The Used’s Joey Bradford Wants Guitars to Feel Human Again · May 11, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Fluff vs. The Internet: Who’s Actually Winning? · May 4, 2026 · 1h 5m
• Chumbawamba!!! (Something A Bit Different) · April 27, 2026 · 1h 18m
• What It Takes to Survive in the Guitar Industry w/ Danny Songhurst (The Rock Slide) · April 20, 2026 · 1h 8m