This month in Bought & Sold, the Cult’s Billy Duffy swoops in on the back of his Falcon to discuss all things guitar, from first electric guitars to the rig that gets him through a show – and why getting through the show is really the only thing he can be thinking about when it comes to pedals.
He tells us about Johnny Marr’s kind gift, winces in pain as he tells of a Les Paul loved and lost, and answers one of the greatest philosophical questions of our time: which combo is better, the cheap guitar/high-end amp or high-end guitar/cheap guitar?
What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money?
“It was an Ibanez Les Paul copy from back when they were making copies in the ’70s. I got a complete deal on it… it might have fallen off the back of a lorry, if you know what I mean [laughs]. But it was Wine Red and like a Les Paul Standard. What I really wanted was a Les Paul Custom, but beggars can’t be choosers.
What was the last guitar you bought, and why?
I’m sitting right next to it: I just bought that Mick Ronson [1968 Les Paul Custom Collector’s Edition] tribute guitar from Gibson – and I did buy it with my own money!
The fact that it happens to be wood-fronted and a Les Paul Custom with no pickguard or pickup covers might be something that sounds familiar to me over the last 30 years [laughs]. I couldn’t not buy it. How could you not buy a Ronno?
What’s the most incredible find or bargain that you’ve had while buying guitars?
I wanted the ‘ultimate’, but nothing beats what I’ve got – a Klon – so that’s buyer’s remorse
Rapid City, South Dakota: Les Paul Custom with a wood front. Pawn shop: $400. We [The Cult] were supporting Metallica, so this would have been spring or early summer of ’89, I believe. I remember this because I never found anything in pawn shops, apart from that guitar, which I had sprayed black. I think it’s a ’75, or a ’76. That was my best score.
What’s the strongest case of buyer’s remorse you’ve had while buying gear?
I remember going through a phase of buying, wanting and looking for the ultimate overdrive pedal. I kept buying pedals and trying them out, but they were basically all shite [laughs]. I wanted the ‘ultimate’, but nothing beats what I’ve got – a Klon – so that’s buyer’s remorse.
And okay, I did buy a Gibson twin-neck, which is on Sonic Temple somewhere, so I should probably get a demerit for that. I used the 12-string part, but I mean… what was I thinking? It was cream-coloured and I guess it was beautiful.
Have you ever sold a guitar that you now intensely regret letting go of?
Oh, yeah. I bought a refinished but otherwise all-original ’59 Les Paul for about $10,000. You can see it on YouTube because I used it on a few TV shows around the Electric album. I would use it on stage occasionally, like at the live concert we did for the BBC in London. But I didn’t use it all the time, just for maybe encores, because I never really got along with it.
They all wanted fucking Charvels, not flame-fronted Les Paul Standards. Then, all of a sudden, Slash came along.
I knew the guitar was valuable, but remember: this was before Slash blew up, so nobody really wanted Les Pauls. They all wanted fucking Charvels, not flame-fronted Les Paul Standards. Then, all of a sudden, Slash came along.
Anyway, I sold the guitar to Bob Rock like an idiot for $10,000… then Slash blew up, and I immediately missed out on about $150,000 worth of profit right there [laughs]. But that was the marketplace for the guitar at the time – and we knew it had been refinished, but it was only re-lacquered on top, otherwise it was all-original. It had all the right electrics, but it was purchased knowing it had a refin.
So I let Bob have it for what I paid for it in a moment of largesse that I regret… and he still reminds me about it today! I also sold him a 1961 P-Bass that I bought and that we used quite a lot on the road. We used it on Sonic Temple, too. It was a cheap white P-Bass, but it was great-sounding.
What’s your best tip for anyone looking to buy their ultimate guitar?
Sit with the guitar in your hands and if it doesn’t feel right, if it doesn’t immediately feel good, it ain’t for you. Go with your gut. Trust your instincts. I’ve tried to make guitars work for me and, in the end, I’ve gotten rid of them. If you feel immediately at home with a guitar, that’s a beautiful thing.
And it doesn’t matter what type of guitar, you know? I’ve never been much of a Fender person, but there are certain Fenders that I’ve picked up, and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is epic.’ It’s not a branding thing, it’s just the individual instrument – and you have to bond with it.
If forced to make a choice, would you rather buy a really good guitar and a cheap amp, or a cheap guitar and a top-notch amp?
It’s interesting because a good amp is a very useful thing to have because there are a lot of bad amps out there. So I’d be more inclined to keep the amp, but that sort of contradicts what I just said about buying a guitar!
If you buy a good guitar and a bad amp, you’re gonna have to get a good amp or else you’re always going to sound shitty. If you do it the other way around, you might actually sound better with a bad guitar because if the guitar is badly put together, you could change the pickups.
It’s much easier to throw a good pickup in the shitty guitar and transform it, right? Unless it’s a bad acoustic… You’ll have to find somebody to take it off your hands because there’s no fixing a bad acoustic.
If you could only use humbuckers or single-coil pickups for the rest of your career, which would it be, and why?
You can answer that one. With me, you really can [laughs]. With humbuckers, I just love the thickness of the sound. Personally, I have never really gotten over walking on stage with a really good Les Paul and a really good Marshall – or equivalent – amp, and just letting rip with the visceral nature of what that can do, you know?
I’ve used single-coil guitars on albums for bits and pieces here and there, and for layering guitars. But, for me, they’re a bit too… they’re just kind of delicate, I guess. I’m a bit of an old-school player who likes to feel the air move and the raw power of the thing. And that’s a humbucker for me.
Billy’s Go-To Rig
After grunge happened and the band wasn’t as popular, I had to simplify my rig and just put together pedalboards where I can replace most of the stuff. I use two or three delays, though people tell me, "Why don’t you just reset one delay?" I say, "Have you ever done a gig in Argentina in front of thousands of people? There is no time to be resetting your delay," [laughs]. I’ve also got a couple of overdrives and a clean boost – I’d recommend one for any player.
I started using Friedman 50-watt amps, the Dirty Shirley. Dave [Friedman] modifies them for me a bit, but in essence, they’re pretty standard. With that, I’ve got two Marshall 4x12s – I use the Vintage speakers in one and the mid-’80s ones in the other. And then I use a Roland JC-120 for some clean stuff, and also a Vox AC30 – but it’s one of the Chinese-made ones. I found the hand‑wired ones to be a bit too honest.
For guitars, I’ve got a few Les Paul Customs that are very similar to each other, so I’ll take out three [Gretsch White] Falcons and three Les Pauls – I can get most of the sounds I need from that.
And for acoustics, Johnny Marr gave me his [Martin M-7] signature acoustic. That’s a really cool seven-string with the cheeky extra G string. It gives me a little bit of instant access to what was originally Roger McGuinn’s kind of trick, you know?
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