This month, Bought & Sold gets a power-up as the high-voltage Phil X joins Guitarist. He’s here to talk about his life in guitars, from the instruments he made his bones on to the Gibson signature guitar that has been long in development but maybe – just maybe – is about to be released soon.
The Bon Jovi lead guitarist will be answering the big philosophical questions, too, around electric guitar pickup preferences, and the value of a cheap electric guitar versus a budget amp. Let’s get started…
I was 11 and I was washing dishes at my dad’s restaurant, saving my money. My dad was like, ‘Hey, you find a guitar and we’ll split it. Whatever you have, I’ll match.’ So I took my 175 bucks, he matched that and we went to this weird guy’s apartment and bought a secondhand Strat.
As I honed my craft as a player, I also honed my craft as a tinkerer of guitars. I painted it many times. It went through many things and it’s pretty crazy now that I think of it. I feel like I dug that guitar way more because I put my own money into it, you know? I feel like it wasn’t just handed to me.
It’s something I worked hard for and I appreciated more. That gets missed a lot these days. You know, when people are like, ‘Man, I saw that you got a new pedal setup. But it’s so expensive and I can’t afford it.’ I’m like, ‘Go cut some lawns, man.’ I washed dishes at my dad’s restaurant – and that was gross!
What was the last guitar you bought and why?
Oh, wow… this is going to be a good part of the story. There was a 1979 Stratocaster that I found in Florida in a vintage shop. And I bought it because it reminded me of that first Strat I told you about.
The other thing is that when I put it in my hand, I felt like I was 11 again. It was the exact same neck, which is incredible, right? I was like, ‘What do you want for this?’ He goes, ‘Well, it’s this much… but you’re Phil X, so I’ll give you a deal.’ [laughs]
I was like, ‘What do you want for this?’ He goes, ‘Well, it’s this much… but you’re Phil X, so I’ll give you a deal’
What’s the most incredible find or bargain you’ve ever had when buying a guitar?
There’s always a bargain to be had, you know? Especially if you walk in and people say, like, ‘Hey, man, would you do a video for the store?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I really can’t because I’m under contract with…’ But, for me, it’s funny – I’ve had endorsements for so long, and some of the best guitars I’ve owned have been free!
But, really, the truly special one is the one I’m working on with Gibson, which is a signature SG, so my favourite guitar right now is prototype number three. In Bon Jovi, I have to play, like, eight or 10 guitars because there’s different tunings and sounds. I have that SG in rehearsals and I’ll pick it up and go, ‘Oh, my God… this guitar just feels like home.’
We made the body an eighth of an inch thicker for me because I’m a bigger guy. And we put in a ’57 Goldtop neck profile on it. And you can’t beat that bargain!
Have you ever sold a guitar that you now intensely regret letting go?
There was a 1964 SG Junior that I got and I loved it. A guy offered me way more than I paid for it and it was too hard to pass up the opportunity, so I let it go and then immediately regretted the whole thing.
Oh, man, another one goes back years to when I was young. My dad brought home some really, really weird guitars – one was a Vox [V251] Organ Guitar.
When I moved to LA in ’97, about a year later in ’98, it was getting really hard to pay the rent and I was working weird jobs. But no matter how many weird jobs I had, I didn’t have the rent for February, so I sold that Organ Guitar. That one really hurt.
What’s your best buying tip for anyone looking for their ultimate guitar?
Play as many guitars as you possibly can. Even if you want to play a Les Paul or a Tele, play 10 Les Pauls and 10 Teles. Whatever you want to get, it’s not going to be the first one you pick up. Maybe you won’t like the colour, but you’ve got to hear it acoustically, and there should be mojo that you hear before you even plug it in.
There’s got to be something you feel in your hands where that guitar is screaming, ‘Take me home!’ That’s the true connection.
When was the last time you stopped and looked in a guitar shop window (or browsed online) and what were you looking at?
There’s something about Flying Vs and Explorers that smack me in the face [laughs]. I have two Explorers and two Flying Vs, but they keep popping up! Man, I keep saying, ‘Oh, I gotta get that.’ [laughs]
If forced to make a choice, would you rather buy a really good electric guitar and a cheap amp or a cheap guitar and a top-notch guitar amp?
You know, what’s in your hands is almost more important, but I think I’d have to get a better guitar and a cheaper amp. You can always get around on a cheaper amp or then go get a cheap pedal to make the cheap amp even better. But if you’re playing a really shitty guitar, you’re really limiting your progress.
If you could only use humbuckers or single coil pickups, which would it be, and why?
Well, I still categorise the P-90 as a single coil, so that would be the one. It would be the P-90 single coil because when the volume is on 10, you get rock ’n’ roll. And when you back it off to about 7, you could get Tele-ish, country-ish tones. And when you back it up to about 3 or 4, you get a beautiful, glassy clean sound.
Phil’s go-to rig
I’ve got an SG, for sure, especially that prototype that I was talking about. But I have another two SGs – one always has a P-90 in it, and one has a humbucker in it. Then my amp would be my [100-watt EL34-powered] Friedman X signature amp. And the pedal is my J Rockett PXO signature overdrive.
So that would be my go-to rig. I have all that stuff when I play with Bon Jovi and with The Drills; it’s my go-to for anything and everything.
- Pow! Right in the Kisser is out now via Frontiers.
- This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.
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