These Vintage Print Ads for Sunn Amps Are as Iconic as the Gear They Promote

Big-name endorse­ments and sharp visu­al design from the clas­sic era of Sunn ampli­fiers.

I’m sure that every­body read­ing this who likes extreme­ly loud music knows about Sunn amps—a sacred rel­ic in the holy tem­ple of deci­bel wor­ship. If you’re into music that makes your eardrums beg for mer­cy, you’re already drool­ing over these collector’s gems.

We did some archae­o­log­i­cal digs through the inter­net and struck gold. Black, mono­chro­mat­ic gold—retro adver­tis­ing from the late 60s to the ear­ly 80s from Sunn. These gems once graced the pages of Rolling Stone and oth­er music rags. You can thank Vin­tage Gui­tar & Bass for sav­ing most of these, but some oth­ers I found float­ing around the net.

Behold the bold use of min­i­mal­ist neg­a­tive space, black and white, and Hel­veti­ca that screamed, “This gear is for hard­core musi­cians, not your grand­ma’s trib­ute band.” You can almost hear the over­drive and the neigh­bors’ noise com­plaints. It’s like I’m back in the garage for band prac­tice.

If not for the endorse­ments here by Jimi Hen­drix, the Steve Miller Band, and John Ent­whis­tle of the Who dat­ing them, the visu­al design on these old scans seems to be as time­less as the equip­ment they’re adver­tis­ing.

Sunn gear wasn’t just amps; it was a rev­o­lu­tion in brand­ing. Even that one drone met­al band swiped their long-dor­mant logo and name for them­selves, and look where they’re at now.

Who could have guessed that an amp com­pa­ny made in the 60s to be loud enough for high school sock-hop con­certs would grow into such a cult fol­low­ing? Fast for­ward a few decades, and you’ve got a cult fol­low­ing that wor­ships the ground these amps blast sound from. If not for the qual­i­ty of the amps them­selves, no doubt the strong iden­ti­ty behind the gear helped it stand the test of time.

From Jimi Hen­drix, The Who, and Vel­vet Under­ground in the ear­ly days to the cacoph­o­nous chaos of Unwound, Melvins, and Dead Kennedys lat­er on. And now? It’s the play­ground of doom-laden, tin­ni­tus-induc­ing bands like Earth, Boris, and Sunn O))). Trust me, I’ve seen those lat­ter three live, and com­ing into the venue and see­ing a ten-foot wall of these amps at a gig is akin to meet­ing the fir­ing squad at dawn.

Sure, they’re not the stereo­typ­i­cal “clas­sic rock” amps that first come to mind like Fend­er and Mar­shall, but Sunn was the avant-garde of sound tech, the pio­neers of son­ic anar­chy until Fend­er bought them up in the 80s, lead­ing to their untime­ly demise in 2002 (rumor has it they’re mak­ing a come­back, so keep those fin­gers crossed). They have their rep­u­ta­tion for their unique sound and brand­ing, so why should their adver­tis­ing be any dif­fer­ent?

Bonus: This was too good to leave out. Post-Fend­er buy­out in ’85, Sun­n’s ads seemed to have done a total 180, pan­der­ing to the glam and hair met­al guys who lived in car­pet­ed wood-pan­el base­ments with wiz­ard-paint­ed vans parked out­side. Sud­den­ly, their ads had actu­al col­or, fea­tur­ing myth­i­cal beasts, cas­tles, and Gene Sim­mons. Because what’s an amp ad in the 80s with­out a drag­on-rid­ing wiz­ard, right? Rock on.