“I fell in with some Texas boys and started jamming. They had these G&Ls. The first time I picked one up, I fell in love”: Jerry Cantrell on the magic and mods of his iconic “Blue Dress” G&L Rampage – and his gift from Eddie Van Halen
Back in January 1996, Alice In Chains' Jerry Cantrell was on the cover of Guitar World with his “Blue Dress” Rampage. 30 years on it's still going strong
Kurt Cobain's Competition Stripe Mustang will be many people's idea of the quote/unquote most iconic electric guitar to emerge out of the early '90s Seattle scene – and the crazy money it sold for at auction would back that up.
But Jerry Cantrell's G&L Rampage with the Blue Dress graphic has to be in the conversation. It's been with him since the beginning. And in this installment of Cover Stars we revisit a Jan '96 Guitar World cover with the man himself to talk all things Rampage.
How’d you get this guitar?
I’d just graduated from high school, so I was 18. I was in a band, and we were about to go to college. I got the ultimatum from the family – get a job or go to school: “If you wanna live at the house, take your pick. Otherwise, get the fuck out.” [Laughs] I was like, “Maybe I’ll go to school.” I worked jobs, too, but I took school because I figured it would allow me more time to play guitar.
I made it through half a semester of college, and then my drummer was chirping in my ear about quitting school, taking a year off and going to Texas to try to take the band to the next level. [Laughs] He said his dad would give us jobs at an insulation company. So I quit college, and we were in a van a week later fucking driving to Dallas.
It was pretty short-lived. I worked for the insulation company for a whole summer before I fell in with some Texas boys and started jamming. I had this dark brown tobacco-colored Hamer V, but they had these G&Ls. The first time I picked one up, I fell in love.
What did you like about it?
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It fell right into my hand. Their dad worked for a music store called Arnold & Morgan Music Company in Garland, Texas, and he gave me a job. That’s where they’d gotten these G&Ls. With my first paycheck, I bought the G&L with the “Blue Dress.” A couple of months later, I bought the “No War” one.
Did you modify your G&L?
Van Halen is one of my favorite bands, and Eddie was just a fucking alien. I was like, “How the fuck does this guy make his guitar sound like this?” It was inspiring on many levels, and he was also into tinkering. His guitar is called Frankenstein for a reason! [Laughs] Also, the artwork – the striped pattern – was a direct influence on me and the way my guitar looks with the circles and squares. I was trying to find my own pattern.
The strings always came off the Kahler because it was top-mounted. I felt like it needed a bit more tension, so I counter-sunk the Kahler down into the body a little, which added a bit more tension at the rolling bar.
It came with a shitty locking mechanism where the screws were made out of tin foil or something. [Laughs] Every time I changed the strings, I was replacing nuts because you’d strip them. So I put a Floyd Rose nut up top as that’s what Eddie had and counter-sunk the Kahler. I added a Seymour Duncan JB as my main pickup.
How did your G&L impact the way you played?
To some degree, you’re a mechanic. You use whatever tool you need for the job. Even if the G&L is my main guitar and is gonna be on most of the stuff and the one I feel most comfortable with, if I’m writing a song that sounds better on a Tele or a Strat or a V, I’m gonna use that. But then there’s the one you’re kinda known for. Angus [Young] plays a Gibson SG or Eddie’s got his guitar. The G&L is mine. It’s the one that felt right. It’s the one I’ve been playing the longest.
There’s something to miles traveled, time spent together and sweat, blood, tears and soul being transferred from the player into the guitar and from the guitar back to the player. Those two G&Ls – nothing sounds as good or feels as good or has the right weight that those two have. You put them side by side to others like them, and they should sound the same, but they don’t.
What makes them special?
There’s an individual personality to the wood, or maybe one guy was paying more attention at the shop that day. [Laughs] It could be any number of things that lined up to make that instrument what it is… It’s like cars on an assembly line. Every once in a while, there’s a special one – and I got two.
It goes without saying that your G&L is probably on nearly every notable album you’ve put out, right?
I’d have to say that probably 95 percent of anything you’ve ever heard from me has at least one of those G&Ls on it, if not both. [Laughs]
When it came time for your GW cover shoot in 1996, was there ever a question that you’d grab a G&L?
I’ve appeared on covers with other guitars that are important to me. But with the G&Ls, it’s the “Blue Dress” and the “No War.” Those, with my Les Paul, are my unholy trinity.
We know you still have your “Blue Dress” G&L, which appeared on the January 1996 cover, but you had a close call with it in April 2024.
I was freaking out for three or four days. We couldn’t track it down. It was a pre-album thing, and we were doing a video and a photo shoot and then going back for rehearsal, and shit was moving around, and I lost track of it. Thankfully, it was just misplaced.
Alice In Chains were on tour with Van Halen, and I got two guitars from Eddie
The feeling of, you know, when I put the post out when I was in a panic, was like, “I’d rather be wrong and have a little egg on my face, so I’m gonna throw this out there to the world.”
I’ve had a guitar that meant a lot to me go missing, where I was lucky to get it back, and that was a goldtop Music Man that Ed [Van Halen] gave me. Alice In Chains were on tour with Van Halen, and I got two from him. One was a goldtop and was a trans blue where you could see the wood flame through the finish.
The goldtop went missing when I was making Degradation Trip [Jerry’s 2002 solo album]; I didn’t see it for 18 or 19 years. It disappeared, and it broke my heart because my fucking dude gave me that guitar. Luckily, it made its way back to me. When I thought that was what happened to the G&L, I was crushed for a couple of days.
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
Andrew Daly is an iced-coffee-addicted, oddball Telecaster-playing, alfredo pasta-loving journalist from Long Island, NY, who, in addition to being a contributing writer for Guitar World, scribes for Bass Player, Guitar Player, Guitarist, and MusicRadar. Andrew has interviewed favorites like Ace Frehley, Johnny Marr, Vito Bratta, Bruce Kulick, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Morello, Rich Robinson, and Paul Stanley, while his all-time favorite (rhythm player), Keith Richards, continues to elude him.
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