In the late ’70s, B.C. Rich, with all its pointy and wacky-shaped guitars, was giving out guitars like weary-eyed parents to children on Halloween. Aerosmith’s Joe Perry was given one such guitar, a bright red B.C. Rich 10 Supreme.

The guitar has become wholly associated with Perry, though by his own admission, he hardly played it with Aerosmith. Yet he was shown with the guitar slung over his shoulder on the cover of Aerosmith’s Live Bootleg record.

These days, Perry always takes it on the road with him, as he too understands the guitar’s connection to his persona. It’s with that in mind that Perry dialed in with Guitar World to look back on his relationship with his Rich Bich.

What’s the story behind your 10-string B.C. Rich?

When I started my relationship with B.C. Rich, they were different-looking guitars, but you could tell they were built really well. The neck went all the way through the body, and they had all these touches, and it sounded incredible.

I thought B.C. Rich was definitely top-notch as far as workmanship. The only thing that bothered me about them was that they had all these switches and, like, three boosts, which was kind of overkill because they had some pretty good PAF reproductions in there.

You didn’t need three boosts, so there was a lot going on. After one of mine was stolen, I didn’t have time to go to the factory and talk to them, so they just kind of handed me the next guitar, which was this 10-string.

What did you think of it?

I guessed the theory was that if you set it up with the right strings, you could play it with more attitude than a regular guitar. You could get vibrato off the strings and do things you normally wouldn’t do – and experiment.

It really worked for some things because as soon as you bend the strings, they don’t bend in tune, so there are certain places where it works and others where it doesn’t.

Did you eventually get comfortable with the onboard electronics?

There was a period where I unhooked all the electronics except for the volume and one tone knob. I kept hitting all the other switches and knocking the boost on when I already had a fuzz pedal on, so I thought, “Maybe I’ll cut that stuff out and the guitar will breathe a little more.”

But I eventually put it back to the original specs. Also, for a short period of time, I took off the extra four strings and played it like a normal six-string, but that kinda defeated the purpose.

You used it with Aerosmith, but it was one of your main guitars after you launched the Joe Perry Project in the ’80s.

I played it on a few Aerosmith songs in the studio when I first got it, and I played it live a bit. But it was kind of near the end before I left, so it was funny that it ended up in the photo on the Live! Bootleg album.

I was surprised, considering how [infrequently] I played that guitar, but it became one of the top three guitars associated with me. [Laughs] I still work it into a couple of songs in the set because nothing else sounds like it.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Best of 2025: Over the holiday season, GW is shining the spotlight on some of its biggest stories of the year.

After lying about her age to get a job at a medical facility in Long Beach to save up some money, Lita Ford cemented her future when she bought her first serious electric guitar at the age of 14 – a chocolate-finished Gibson SG that accompanied her through the rollercoaster ride that was The Runaways.

Naturally, that’s not the only guitar she’s used throughout her career, and over the past five decades of playing and collecting, Ford has unsurprisingly curated a rich seam of guitar-related anecdotes.

“I remember, one of my guitars went missing,” Ford told Guitarist. “It was a gorgeous guitar, like, a turquoise-green [B.C. Rich] Mockingbird, ebony fretboard, no fret inlays. And there was a time when I was auditioning guitar players.

“They were coming over to my studio and one guy comes in with that turquoise guitar. I looked at it and I thought, ‘That’s my guitar.’ And he looks at me and says, ‘Oh yeah, isn’t this a great guitar?’

“‘I bought it off some guy on the street for 350 bucks. Can you believe that? It’s my favorite guitar ever.’ I just couldn’t take it away from him. I let him have it. Of course, he didn’t get the audition, but he got to keep the guitar and he didn’t know it was mine.”

Aside from the one guitar that (literally) got away, Ford reveals she’s currently having a guitar made by Neal Moser, the renowned luthier who worked as an independent contractor for B.C. Rich Guitars between 1974 and 1985.

“He’s made all the biggest and the baddest guitars, in my opinion,” Ford asserts. “Recently, he joined forces with another company and they created this guitar called the Raven. I saw it and thought, ‘I have to have that. It looks futuristic, dangerous and sexy at the same time.’”

However, Ford had a few custom requests to make the guitar truly Lita-esque. “I said, ‘It needs to have a Kahler tremolo and DiMarzio Super Distortions, and it’s got to be black on black, no inlays.’

“Because I like to mess people up when they look at me play. They don’t see the inlays, so they don’t know where I’m at. When you see it, you’ll just think, ‘Wow, that guitar is sick.’”

In other Lita Ford news, the veteran guitarist addressed the longstanding rumor that she was approached to replace bassist John Paul Jones in Led Zeppelin.

Lita Ford and B.C. Rich guitars go hand in hand. However, in an exclusive interview with Guitar World last year, the trailblazing virtuoso admitted that she’s still partial to Gibson SGs – particularly her well-worn, chocolate-colored electric guitar, which has been forever immortalized in the innumerable photos and videos from her Runaways era.

“I got a job in a medical facility when I was 14. I lied about my age! I saved up enough money to buy a Gibson SG. It was the shit – I loved it so much, and it made all my dreams come true,” she waxed lyrical.

“My father used to have a Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder, and I used to take it in my room; it was huge – as big as somebody’s oven! I would take it apart and disconnect the speakers, and move the speakers off to one side and the other.

“I would plug my guitar in and slap on the echo, and it just sounded like God. I didn’t have an amplifier back then; I was too young to have all the bits and pieces and bells and whistles. That reel-to-reel just kicked ass. It was as good as a Marshall stack as far as I was concerned!”

Ford went on to admit that she “never segued from that SG”, and it still holds a special place in her heart.

“It just doesn’t happen. It’s like an old pair of jeans, you know?” she said matter-of-factly. “You put them in your closet and come back to them every once in a while, and you love them.

“That SG will always be special. I used to take a patch cord and cross the channels, because there are four. It added a bit more crunch where I didn’t have a preamp on the SG, and that’s why I had it added to the B.C. Rich.”

Speaking of B.C Rich guitars, earlier this year Lita Ford looked back on that time her prized Mockingbird was stolen, only to cross paths with it in the most bizarre circumstances.

In the electrifying realm of rock 'n' roll, few artists capture the essence of rebellion and raw talent like the iconic Slash. With his signature top hat fashionably perched atop his head and a legendary Gibson Les Paul slung dangerously low, he transcends the title of guitarist to become a true living legend.

As a founding member of the groundbreaking bands Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, as well as a celebrated solo artist, Slash has unleashed a barrage of sizzling solos and explosive, genre-defining riffs that have rocked the world for decades. His distinct, fierce, and in-your-face tone has set the gold standard for hard rock guitar, with it becoming a sonic benchmark that countless aspiring musicians strive to emulate.

So, let’s plunge into the most significant models within Slash’s extensive guitar collection, unraveling the secrets behind his sought-after sound. What better way to explore the gear that shaped the legendary shredder of Guns N' Roses than through his own words? We’ve scoured our print archives to unearth old interviews, allowing you to hear the captivating stories behind these famous guitars straight from the man himself.

If you’re eager to replicate that iconic tone at home, fear not! We’ll also provide expert guitar recommendations tailored for every budget, from wallet-friendly gems to top-of-the-line models worthy of gracing the stage alongside Slash. Whether you’re looking to recreate the unforgettable sound of early Appetite for Destruction or venture into the more contemporary tones of his illustrious career, we’ve got you covered with everything you need to know about capturing the magic of Slash’s guitar wizardry.

1. Kris Derrig replica 1959 “Les Paul”

Among Slash's revered collection, the Kris Derrig Les Paul stands out as a quintessential piece of rock history, known not only for its iconic aesthetic but also for the unmistakable sound it produces. This particular guitar, crafted by the luthier Kris Derrig, is not just an instrument but a crucial element of Slash's identity as a musician.

When Slash’s Jackson wasn’t cutting it during the Appetite sessions, GN’R manager Alan Niven found a Les Paul replica made by Kris Derrig and gave it to Slash to use on the recording of the record. It was a match made and heaven, and well, the rest is history.

“That Derrig ’59 literally came in the eleventh hour when we were doing the Appetite record,” Slash tells Total Guitar. “We’d just finished the basic tracks, and the guitars that I had at that moment in time just didn’t sound right. They didn’t sound good. I was thinking, ‘What the f*ck am I gonna do?’ Because I had to go in and do all the guitars in a week, and I had no idea what to use. The Guns N’ Roses manager at the time, Alan Niven, brought this Les Paul to the studio for me, just as I was about to do all my guitar overdubs. And it was that Kris Derrig Les Paul. It just sounded f*ckin’ perfect, man... like a gift from on high.”

Now, while the original doesn’t see much stage use these days, it is still used extensively in the studio and has been used on almost every Slash record to date.

When asked which of his guitars he would save in the tragic event of a fire, Slash admits that his beloved Gibson copy would be the first he’d grab, telling Guitarist, “I would go with my Derrig ’59 copy that I’ve been using forever. It’s just such a great-sounding guitar, but it’s old now. It was built in probably ’85 or ’86. It’s very temperamental, so we’re like an old married couple. I have to treat her a certain way, and she gives back a little, so there’s a lot of nuances in how we work together. At the end of the day, tonally, that’s my guitar.”

Get the sound…

2. Gibson Les Paul Standard “Jessica”

Looking to get a couple of Les Pauls to hit the road with in ‘87, Gibson would send Slash a duo of “factory seconds”. The most famous and distinctive of the two was a Standard easily identified by its unique three-piece plain maple top. Featured on every GN’R tour to date, Jessica’s headstock once snapped clean off during a neck bend, but somehow is still rocking its way around the world with Slash today.

“That’s a guitar I picked up when I finally retired the Derrig,” Slash says. “Back then, I was pretty much a nobody, so Gibson sold it to me at cost! There were two of them – one I called Jessica, and the other was Stephanie. They are sisters. And I have them both on the road with me today. We have two rigs, so I have a whole bunch of guitars and amps that go to one part of the planet and then another rig, which is more or less identical, in theory, that goes to another part of the world. So I have Jessica in one and Stephanie in the other.”

“Basically, most of the set will be done with Jessica or Stephanie, he continues. “I guess they get used for most of the Appetite For Destruction stuff. Pretty much all the hard-hitting songs will be played on one of those two guitars, depending on whether I’m in a part of the world that has the A Rig or the B Rig.”

Get the sound…

3. Gibson 1959 Flying V

Just like the rest of us, Slash is always looking for new sounds to help inspire him. Hunting for sonic inspiration around the recording of Use Your Illusions would result in the guitarist purchasing not one, not two, but three original Korina models – two Explorers and a Flying V. Now, many people won’t realise that it would be the latter that he would use to record the now iconic heartfelt solo to Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.

Speaking on purchasing the guitar, Slash tells us how it came into his possession. “I have a good friend called Albert Molinaro, who is a guitar collector and aficionado, but also somebody who sells and trades instruments. I’ve known him since the 80s. Him and another guy called Howie Hubberman used to have this guitar store called Guitars R Us on Sunset Boulevard, right next to Guitar Center when it was on the other side of the street. I’ve known those guys for years, and Albert is someone I’ve kept in constant contact with. He sold me this Flying V when we were doing the Use Your Illusion records, as well as two ’58 Explorers – all Korina guitars, obviously.”

Talking about the sound, Slash says, “They just have this certain kind of tonal quality to them that I find to be very unique and attributable to that kind of wood. I used it on the fly, to be honest. I was going somewhere, I dropped by the studio really quick and laid down the guitar solos from Knockin’ On Heaven's Door with that Flying V because I’d just gotten it.”

He continues, “Honestly, it was one of those one-take solos through the song with that one guitar. It was one of those moments where the guitar in your hands feels totally amazing and like you could do anything on it! I love how those solos ended up sounding. And ’59 Flying Vs are hard to come by, because they’re very rare and super f*ckin’ expensive. As time goes by, they get more and more expensive. I’ve been holding onto this one for dear life!”

Get the sound...

4. BC Rich Mockingbird

Now, while it’s easy to think Slash only plays Gibsons, he actually has a broader range of tastes than you may think. Appearing in the video for GN’R’s highest charting single, You Could Be Mine, Slash’s scarlet red Mockingbird is a striking model to say the least. He still whips it out live whenever he needs a whammy bar, and it featured heavily on Velvet Revolver’s Libertad tour.

Speaking on the origin of this pointy BC Rich model, Slash says, “Back in the day, around 1990, I used to hang out at this club in Hollywood called The Cathouse. This guy needed money and had this B.C. Rich, that he was trying to sell. I told this guy, 'Meet me here next Tuesday and bring it with you, and let me check it out.' He brought it down, I checked it out, and I bought it from him. It became the Guns N’ Roses tremolo guitar. I pulled it out whenever there was anything in Guns N’ Roses that needed a tremolo bar. Use Your Illusion had a lot of different sounds on it, and one of them was the tremolo. This also became the live guitar, and then it was in the video for You Could Be Mine, and I also used it with Velvet Revolver for Sucker Train Blues, and anything else that needed a tremolo.”

Get the sound…

5. Gibson 1966 EDS-1275

If you’ve ever seen Slash perform his take on the Bob Dylan classic, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door live, then you’ll certainly recognize this blacked-out double-neck Gibson. First coming into his possession in the ‘90s, this instrument would be used extensively in the studio and on stage. This model is so iconic to Slash that it would get the Custom Shop treatment when, in September 2019, Gibson would launch a very limited run of reissues.

“I believe this is a ’67 or ’68 that I picked up used, and it was already refinished black like that,” says Slash. “It’s been sort of the Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door guitar. Most of the guitars that I bought new, I bought in the 90s because when we were doing those double records – the Use Your Illusion albums – I was trying to find different ways to make 36 songs sound interesting. The double neck was integral to Guns’ guitar sound for some of those songs, so I took it on the road,” he continues. “When you think of certain songs, you’ll think of that guitar. It’s really convenient because when you do a guitar solo or there’s a heavy part, you’ve got the six-string, and for the other picking parts, you’ve got the twelve-string.”

Get the sound…

Wet Leg drop their highly anticipated sophomore album, moisturizer, today (July 11), mere days after their lauded performance at Glastonbury Festival, which saw co-guitarist and now main vocalist Rhian Teasdale wield a quirky acrylic B.C. Rich Mockingbird.

In the space of a few short years, Wet Leg have become one of the hottest indie guitar rock acts on the planet – and that's quite an achievement, owing to the fact Teasdale didn't play guitar until the band was formed.

“I don’t expect to get to the status of guitar hero,” Wet Leg co-founder and Teasdale's co-guitarist Hester Chambers reflected during an interview with Guitar World in 2022.

“I think it might have come more from the fact that we love guitar music. It definitely sparked something in us seeing bands like Big Thief, and just listening to The Strokes and Kings Of Leon growing up. But it’s really fun to let go of our insecurities. We can say, ‘We’re not like those people, we’re not technical but we can still write songs and play gigs.’”

And while Chambers was an accomplished guitarist pre-Wet Leg, Teasdale fell into playing guitar because of the band.

“Something that really blows my mind is that before Wet Leg, Rhian didn’t know how to play guitar,” Chambers commented with a smile.

“She’s excellent at writing songs on a piano but had never done it on a guitar. She was like, ‘I’m gonna write on guitar,’ and it just kind of happened. She’s got a really beautiful way of playing and writing. She’s not restricted, not like, ‘Oh, I need to learn these chords so I can make this song.’ She just kind of plays around.”

Fast forward to 2025, and Teasdale is leading the pack – which now includes long-serving touring musicians Henry Holmes, Josh Mobaraki, and Ellis Durand as official members of the band – with a guitar typically associated with metal and worlds away from the Surf Green Jazzmaster she was associated with in the band's previous era.

This is far from a brand-new phenomenon, as the past couple of years have seen many non-metal acts embrace the allure of metal guitars.

This month on Bought & Sold, it is the turn of a bona-fide rock legend to share her story in gear, as Lita Ford checks in to talk all things guitars, from her first serious instrument to her go-to rig.

If you find yourself nervous in the company of B.C. Rich’s weaponized metal guitars. Maybe sit this one out. Here Ford explains why the company’s Neal Moser is the best in the business, why she has no fretboard inlays, and why she doesn’t go shopping for guitars anymore. And there’s the story of that stolen Mockingbird…

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money?

“When I was 14, I lied about my age and got a job working at a medical facility in Long Beach, California. I went in and told them, ‘I need a job and I’m 16,’ and they hired me. So I worked for them for a few months and was able to save up $350. I then went to the local music store and bought myself a chocolate Gibson SG, which I played in The Runaways.”

What was the last guitar you bought and why?

“Right now, I’m in the process of getting this guitar made by Neal Moser. He’s been with B.C. Rich for the long haul, and he’s made all the biggest and the baddest guitars, in my opinion. Recently, he joined forces with another company and they created this guitar called the Raven.

“I saw it and thought, ‘I have to have that. It looks futuristic, dangerous, and sexy at the same time.’ But I said, ‘It needs to have a Kahler tremolo and DiMarzio Super Distortions, and it’s got to be black on black, no inlays.’ Because I like to mess people up when they look at me play. They don’t see the inlays, so they don’t know where I’m at. When you see it, you’ll just think, ‘Wow, that guitar is sick.’”

What’s the most incredible find, bargain, or steal you’ve ever had when buying guitars?

“Only people stealing from me! I remember, one of my guitars went missing. It was a gorgeous guitar, like, a turquoise-green Mockingbird, ebony fretboard, no fret inlays. And there was a time when I was auditioning guitar players. They were coming over to my studio and one guy comes in with that turquoise guitar.

“I looked at it and I thought, ‘That’s my guitar.’ And he looks at me and says, ‘Oh yeah, isn’t this a great guitar? I bought it off some guy on the street for 350 bucks. Can you believe that? It’s my favorite guitar ever.’ I just couldn’t take it away from him. I let him have it. Of course, he didn’t get the audition, but he got to keep the guitar and he didn’t know it was mine.”

What’s the strongest case of buyer’s remorse you’ve ever had after buying gear?

“It’s not really happened. Y’know, I usually work pretty closely with a lot of these music stores and I get the inside scoop on everything. I think the only amp I ever returned, that I didn’t like, was the Kerry King Marshall. But the only reason I returned it was because it has a gate on it. I mean, I like everything to be wide open. Hissing, feeding back, making as much noise as possible. Gates – no.”

Have you ever sold a guitar that you now intensely regret letting go?

“Oh, tons of them. My Gibson SG that I had when I was a kid. I don’t know why I sold that. You just do stupid things sometimes. You just get bored with stuff and you think, ‘I’ll sell it.’ It was just the wrong move. But I know who has it. I don’t think he’ll sell it back to me, but maybe it’ll come back to me one day.”

What’s your best buying tip for anyone looking for their ultimate guitar?

“I’ve never really gone shopping for guitars. Usually, I just have them made. But I would say: be sure you know what you’re looking for as far as sound goes. What do you want to sound like? What do you want to do with that guitar?

“It’s like when my mom and dad bought me a plastic department store guitar for Christmas when I was 11. I couldn’t play Black Sabbath on that, it just didn’t sound right. So don’t do that. Make sure you know what you want to sound like. Because a guitar can look pretty, but it may not sound like you want it to sound.”

When was the last time you stopped and looked in a guitar shop window, or browsed online, and what were you looking at?

“I don’t do it so much any more, but I used to really love finding the little pawn shops in the areas where we were performing. I’m like, ‘This is the middle of nowhere, let’s see what’s in this pawn shop.’ And I’ve picked up some interesting little bits and pieces that way. I got an old Danelectro bass that was interesting. Pedals. Old guitars. If people are in trouble and they need the money, they pawn all kinds of stuff.”

If forced to make a choice, would you rather buy a really good electric guitar and a cheap amp, or a cheap electric guitar and a top-notch amp?

“I mean, you’d be surprised what you can plug a guitar into. If it makes a noise, you could probably use it as an amplifier. So I would say I’d like to have a somewhat decent guitar, and if I had a heap-of-shit amplifier, then I would probably find something to modify it with. In these electronic digital days, there’s a lot of that stuff, so…”

If you could only use humbuckers or single coils for the rest of your career, which would it be and why?

“Well, the only thing that has single coils on it is my Tele. And y’know, that’s just my cooking guitar. I’ll put that on and clunk around while I’m cooking. But, of course, it’s humbuckers. I’m a humbucker girl. I’ve always used DiMarzio Super Distortions.

“They are a little on the muddy side, but they are the ballsiest pickups. And I don’t mind the noise; I like a little bit of noise. I like a little bit of woof on my playing. So they’re the perfect pickups for me. I’ve tried others. But y’know, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”

Lita's go-to rig

“I love the JCM800s, although they’re not always easy to find on the road. So I will use a Kemper, because they’re small and lightweight and they’re easy to travel with, although my first choice is the real deal. And, of course, the Vintage 30 cabinets – I like to use two and split them.

“I don’t always like them to be perfectly next to each other on the stage. I prefer to prop them in places that sound right. I use a Jerry Cantrell wah, they have the deepest swoop, and if you can find an older one, those are probably the best.

“My white B.C. Rich doubleneck has a preamp in the six-string neck, and then you switch over and there’s a flanger-phaser in the 12-string neck. So I don’t have to be at any certain place to step on a pedal on stage, I have it built right into the guitar. Boss makes pretty good delays, of course, and then I’ve got a BlueChorus, which is made by AFX, and it adds a really nice shimmer to the 12-string sound on Close My Eyes Forever.”

• Living Like a Runaway: A Memoir is out now via Dey Street.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

“Les Paul was a working musician who put his ideas into a working model that said something to guitar players,” offers Rick Derringer about guitars named after a musician. “That's what I'm trying to do with my Rick Derringer Stealth guitar.

“I'm one of the few guitarists who has designed an instrument from inception. Neal Schon's with Aria or Lee Ritenour's with Gibson are actually pre-existing instruments where the companies have done minor changes for the guitarist, who have leant their names for these subtle changes.”

Two-and-a-half years in the making, Derringer first had prototypes with Tokai (“Not exactly what I wanted”) and Gibson (“who were real slow”) before he went with B.C. Rich, whose guitars he has been playing for the past eight years.

“B.C. Rich decided they wanted to take a shot at it,” recalls Derringer with a wide smile. “I worked with Bernie Rico, and we made several prototypes that weren't quite right. But this is the closest to being right,” he says as he shows me a spiffy orange fluorescent guitar, faded to dark red towards the outside with white pearl sparkles. “There are just a few minor adjustments that are needed.”

Named after the new American secret weapons system, the Stealth is unique.

“It's a lightweight, modern looking guitar,” beams Derringer. “It's sleek, and the girls tell me it's sexy looking! I'm small so it's made light for smaller guitar players, not meaning to exclude taller players.”

“People have become infatuated with heavy, solidbody guitars for no real reason. It was a fad, a myth: the more mass there is, the less something can vibrate and the more the strings have to vibrate, which very well may be true. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the guitar does anything better, because a lot of professional guitarists I know prefer light guitars – weight- and sound-wise.”

Derringer's Stealth has an all-mahogany neck through the Rich body type of design, a rosewood board, and no inlays.

“As a guitarist, I can feel the inlays under my fingers when I play, and they don't feel as good as the wood. I can feel the cracks between the inlays where they join the wood.

“Whether you know it or not, as a guitarist, subconsciously or consciously, inlays affect you since they're bothersome. You really know the difference if you play a guitar with inlays.”

The Stealth is a combination of the Star and Explorer shapes but smaller, “more modern, and sleeker. There's access to all 24 frets and it comes with an optional new locking Kahler vibrato system that doesn't go out of tune.

“The shape of the neck is immaculate,” he describes. “It's beautiful! There is a lot of width across the top of the board and it's thin from front to back.”

“It comes with two pickups: the normal B.C. Rich DiMarzio setup or the normal B.C. Rich Bill Lawrence setup, or, as an option, a new DiMarzio pickup called the Rick Derringer Signature pickup. It also comes with a standard Gibson-type toggle switch (bass-to-rhythm pickup), and a master volume (active electronics, battery in back).

“Rather than a tone control, which would be normal, it has a bass pickup, volume to preset rhythm levels, or if you use the out of phase switch, which makes the two pickups out of phase from one another, then you can alter the phase relationship between the two pickups by altering the bass volume pickups in relation to the treble volume.

“It has fewer electronics – the fewest controls B.C. Rich has ever had in its guitars – to make it simpler. B.C. Rich usually has a mass of controls that don't look like they're in any order.”

Derringer got his first guitar at age nine: a one-pickup solidbody Harmony.

“I had the foresight that my parents got me an electric guitar,” he reasons after twenty-five years of playing experience. “Many people are encouraged to start with an acoustic guitar, but for the life of me I can't figure out why. An acoustic is a much harder instrument to play and is discouraging for a beginner.

“The music we hear is mostly guitar. Electric guitar made it easier for me to hook into the music on the radio. If I had an acoustic, I would have learned a lot slower, probably have gotten discouraged, and maybe not even gotten as involved in the guitar than I did. But I got an electric guitar and instantly became a guitar player. I learned a song the first day I had it, five or six songs the first week.”

Derringer became a Gibson-style player and used a semi-hollow Gibson ES-355 + 0 without stereo while he was with the McCoys and with Johnny Winter. He then got an old Les Paul cherry Sunburst from John Sebastian, which he renovated, during his Johnny and Edgar Winter days.

When he formed his own group, he began to play B.C. Rich's – Mockingbirds and Bich's. He had all his guitars custom-made with Gibson stylings.

“I really like 50s and 60s Les Pauls,” he maintains. “They're more special and more steal-able.

“Most of my favorite guitars have been stolen. What kind of instrument is as good and special as these old guitars and can be replaced quickly and economically? That's what I found with B.C. Rich, which are like modern Gibson guitars.

“Where Gibson stopped innovating and moving forward in the 60s, B.C. Rich became inventive. They've taken the rigid neck where it goes through the entire body – it's not glued on anymore. They've taken all the innovations from the 60s and have done what Japan has done with cars.

“B.C. Rich has learned from Gibson, and now they're the teachers.”

• This interview with Rick Derringer first appeared in the November 1983 issue of Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

In my humble opinion, the B.C. Rich Mockingbird is the most symbolic electric guitar of the ’70s, both because it is so damn wickedly cool and because it checks all of the right boxes.

Natural laminated-wood hippie-sandwich with neck-through construction? Check. High-output humbuckers? Check. Custom electronics with a confusing array of switches? Check. Radical original body shape? Check. Just by strapping on a Mockingbird you can feel your mustache getting bushier and your heels lifting several inches higher.

The Mockingbird was conceived in 1975 when Johnny “Go-Go” Kallas drew a unique body design for a custom bass that he wanted B.C. Rich to make for him. Bernie Rico thought it would make a great guitar as well, and the Mockingbird was born.

Neal Moser, who designed a new electronic circuit featured on the guitar (which was also added to the pre-existing Seagull and Eagle models), came up with the Mockingbird name, which both reflected his circuit’s ability to generate a wide variety of humbucking and single-coil tones and conformed to the avian-inspired names of previous B.C. Rich models.

The original Mockingbird design is called the “short horn” because the treble cutaway horn is shorter than the bass horn. About a year later Rico modified the design with a longer treble horn that more elegantly complements the offset body’s lines and sweeping curves, also becoming the true godfather of the “pointy” guitar designs that proliferated in the ’80s.

Hardware on the original models was top-quality, with Grover Imperial “stairstep” tuners, a Strap Lock System and a Leo Quan Badass Wraparound bridge being standard features.

Pickups were a pair of custom DiMarzio Dual Sound humbuckers, which were Super Distortion models with four-conductor wiring to enable coil splitting for each pickup and master phase switching.

Moser’s circuit also included an active preamp with an on/off switch and level control for boosting the signal enough to overdrive an amp. A six-position Varitone-style rotary switch provided a variety of midrange tone presets by engaging different capacitor values at each setting. The other controls were a master volume, master tone and three-position pickup toggle.

During the late ’70s, the Mockingbird was available in “entry level” models made of walnut or mahogany, but most buyers paid the extra $100 or $200 for the more deluxe versions made of exotic koa or figured maple.

B.C. Rich was essentially a custom shop (with workshops in East Los Angeles and Tijuana, Mexico), so there’s quite considerable variation in examples from the ’70s, particularly in nut widths and neck carve profiles as each instrument was truly handmade and individual craftsmen had different approaches. If you have your eyes on a vintage Mockingbird, it’s highly recommended to try before you buy.

Dick Wagner was an early adopter of the Mockingbird, which he played in the studio and on stage with Alice Cooper. However, the Mockingbird’s popularity really took off thanks to Bob “Nite Bob” Czaykowski, who introduced the model to Joe Perry and Brad Whitford while he was doing sound for Aerosmith.

Other notable Mockingbird players over the years have included Rick Derringer and Elliot Easton during the ’70s and C.C DeVille, Lita Ford, Kerry King, Bruce Kulick, Chuck Schuldiner and Slash during the ’80s.

B.C. Rich has undergone a number of ownership changes over the years, and quality has varied considerably from the heights of the ’70s/mid-’80s to the lows of the ’90s. USA Custom Shop models have consistently been quite good but expensive, and under new ownership recent models are making an impressive comeback in quality and value.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

The preceding quote is the introduction to Charles Dickens’ immortal classic A Tale of Two Cities, set in Paris and London around the time of the French Revolution, but it’s also a pretty damn accurate description of the state of the guitar industry during the ’70s.

That decade is commonly disparaged as a depressing era when the industry’s leading manufacturers produced some of their worst guitar models, which is not entirely untrue, but it also was an auspicious period when exciting new guitar companies emerged and amp and effect technology rapidly advanced.

The decline of America’s biggest guitar companies during the ’70s was essentially a hangover from the over-ambitious reaction to the Beatlemania-inspired guitar boom of the ’60s. Hoping to cash in on the phenomenon, major corporations purchased America’s biggest guitar companies, with CBS buying Fender, Norlin purchasing Gibson and Baldwin taking over Gretsch.

Although the electric guitar remained massively popular during the ’70s, sales dropped rather steeply from the staggering heights of the ’60s peak. In typical corporate fashion, management typically believed that the accounting department’s cost-cutting measures were a more effective means of maximizing profits than investments in better materials, tools and craftsmanship, and quality took a hit as a result.

That isn’t to say that the instruments Fender, Gibson, Gretsch and others were making during the ’70s were actually bad. Many players who own ’70s guitars from these companies can attest that the majority are decent, playable instruments.

The problem was that distinctly superior instruments from the Fifties and ’60s preceded them by only a few years, so the quality drop-off was much more dramatic and noticeable in comparison. The much higher cost of a new instrument during the ’70s (even when adjusted for inflation) further increased musicians’ frustrations.

The silver lining of the backlash to corporate mass-produced ’70s guitars is that it opened up and nurtured numerous other avenues that offered players compelling alternatives to the status quo. Smaller independent companies emerged that proved that you still could make a guitar like they used to and even improve it.

Japanese manufacturers progressed rapidly from building quirky oddball guitars during the ’60s to producing affordable copies of classic guitars that were surprisingly good during the early and mid ’70s and developing their own original models built with passion and pride in the late ’70s.

The vintage-guitar market rapidly blossomed as guitarists became more knowledgeable and discerning, and replacement pickup, body, neck and parts manufacturers offered convenient and affordable means for players to upgrade their instrument or even build one themselves.

For the most part, the only products that experienced dramatic drops in quality were guitars. Electronic gear like amps and effects improved in general, and most innovations in these areas were developed with players’ wants and needs predominantly in mind.

Rapid advancements in integrated circuit technology led to inexpensive, compact effects like flangers and analog delays, and amp designers finally accepted overdrive and distortion as qualities to embrace rather than eradicate.

Thanks to the abundance of guitar-dominated music that prevailed during the ’70s, gear from that era continues to hold a special place in the hearts of guitarists today. Here is a look at some of the finest examples along with a few admittedly flawed specimens that still manage to charm us after all these years.

Guitars

Major-Manufacturer Beauties and Blunders

Gibson’s age-old motto was “Only a Gibson is good enough,” but during the ’70s that seemed to change to, “It’s good enough, ship it anyway.” The downsides of the corporate takeover of the industry’s leading guitar companies during the ’60s went into full effect during the ’70s as shareholders and cost-cutting took precedence over players and quality.

Some factors were beyond the companies’ control, like the scarcity of Brazilian rosewood after Brazil ceased export of the tone wood in 1967, which caused the price to increase and supply to dwindle, making less-costly Indian rosewood a new standard tone wood.

But the big companies also tended not to leave well enough alone, making many design and construction changes that were often unnecessary, puzzling and unwelcome – features like multi-layered or patchwork multi-piece bodies that seemed to be as much glue as wood, overall weights that tipped the scales at 10 lbs. or more, low-quality or non-optimal electronics, cheap cast hardware, inferior tuners that slipped, heavily applied polyester finishes and so on.

Many bolt-on-neck Fenders suffered from haphazardly cut neck pockets with gaps that were large enough to easily slide a heavy gauge pick into. Gibson guitars often had useful features that guitarists generally didn’t want or understand, like neck volutes, the TP-6 stop tailpiece with fine tuners and the oversized “harmonica” bridge, which weren’t actually bad but were just different.

At the same time, a sort of if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em mentality inspired Fender to offer guitars with humbuckers and Gibson to start producing instruments with bolt-on necks and 25 ½-inch scale lengths.

Meanwhile, Gretsch decided to completely change the design of every guitar they made, which ranged from the decent (the 7594 and 7593 White Falcons, the 7670 Country Gentleman) to the hideous (the Roc Jet, TK300 and Committee, which actually seemed to be designed by a committee).

But like the winner of an ugly-dog contest, many of these models have found loving homes today. Some designs, like the Gibson RD Artist and Fender Lead series, were ahead of their time or simply too different from the classics to make an impression on players with staunchly conservative tastes.

Although luminaries like Ted McCarty and Leo Fender had left Gibson and Fender, respectively, before the ’70s, talented, visionary inventors were still employed by these companies, like electronics whiz Bob Moog at Gibson and legendary pickup designer Seth Lover at Fender.

Rise of the Vintage Guitar Market

In collector vernacular, a vintage item is usually something that is at least 20 years old. The irony of the vintage guitar market is that when it started to gain momentum in the early ’70s, the most highly coveted electric guitar models from the Fifties were barely in their mid-teens and technically were “used” guitars.

But thanks to high-profile dealers like GTR and Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Norman’s Rare Guitars in Los Angeles and Mandolin Brothers, Matt Umanov Guitars and We Buy Guitars in New York, as well as a growing number of smaller dealers across the United States, the word “vintage” that they used to market classic instruments resonated with guitarists (although does anybody today refer to instruments from the ’90s as vintage?).

Numerous factors influenced a growing demand for vintage guitars during the ’70s, but the main driving force was the comparative decline in quality of new instruments as described above.

Ian Hunter’s entertaining and illuminating book Diary of a Rock’n’Roll Star also helped spark the vintage guitar fire during the early ’70s through his accounts of roaming pawn shops across the U.S. in search of classic American guitars and oddities while on tour with Mott the Hoople.

Rick Nielsen played a similar outsize role in stimulating vintage hoarding lust during the late ’70s, appearing on stage with Cheap Trick with row upon row of dazzling vintage and custom guitars on stands perched in front of his amp stacks.

In fact, vintage guitars were a common sight for concert goers during the ’70s. Jimmy Page, Billy Gibbons, Joe Walsh, Joe Perry, Gary Rossington, Ronnie Montrose, Charlie Daniels and Gary Richrath were just a few of the main players who fanned the fire for flame-top 1958-60 Gibson Les Paul Standards.

Peter Frampton’s triple-humbucker 1954 Les Paul Custom, Neil Young’s “Old Black” and Jeff Beck’s “Oxblood” Les Pauls may have been heavily modified, but they inspired lust for black Gibsons. Clapton with his trusty Fifties “Brownie” and “Blackie” Strats and Rory Gallagher with his battered rosewood neck 1961 Strat helped make “pre-CBS” a household word with guitarists.

Although 1958-60 sunburst Les Paul Standards soared to prices starting at $2,000 and up during the ’70s, most classic Fender, Gibson and Gretsch guitars from the ’50s and ’60s, including Les Paul Specials and Juniors, SGs, non-reverse Firebirds, Strats, Teles, Jazzmasters, Jaguars, Duo-Jets and 6120s, cost about the same or even less than a comparable brand-new guitar.

Custom Competition

The less-than-stellar reputations of factory guitars from major manufacturers during the ’70s opened up an opportunity for a new breed of custom guitar builders who could provide a higher standard of quality for customers willing to spend a little more for an instrument.

B.C. Rich, Dean and Hamer were the most prominent and successful small companies that emerged during this time to fill that void. All three companies shared high standards of craftsmanship and attention to detail while also offering bold, aggressive designs that appealed to hard rock players.

Located in the greater Chicago area only a few hours drive from Gibson’s factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Hamer and Dean both built guitars that were essentially copies of Gibson’s Explorer (Hamer Standard/Dean Z) and Flying V (Hamer Vector/Dean V) models but using higher-quality materials.

Hamer also made the Sunburst model, which essentially was a double cutaway Les Paul with a flat top, while Dean also produced the ML and Cadillac, which were like a hybrid of an Explorer and a V or an Explorer and a Les Paul, respectively.

B.C. Rich offered original designs such as the Eagle, Mockingbird and Bich with features like neck-thru-body construction, built-in preamps and advanced switching options.

All three companies built instruments for an impressive roster of high-profile artists, and the exposure and ensuing demand helped them expand their offerings to include less expensive production models by the late ’70s.

Japanese Imports

A growing influx of affordable electric guitars built in Japan arrived in the United States where they were promptly welcomed by players looking for alternative instruments. Manufacturers like FujiGen Gakki, Matsumoku and Tokai Gakki gained a foothold by offering models that were copies of vintage and current Fender, Gibson and other popular American guitar models, sold under various brand names like Aria, Ibanez and Tokai.

The irony was that some of these companies like Matsumoku were also making budget models for American brands like Epiphone at the same time, which were not as highly regarded as their copy models.

Ibanez was the biggest success story of this development. The quality of Ibanez-brand copies increased each year as their craftsmen meticulously studied every fine detail of vintage examples. Fujigen’s Les Paul copies quickly progressed from clunky bolt-on neck designs to set-in necks with long tenons like Gibson made during the ’50s.

Ibanez’s mid-’70s “korina” trio (actually made from Japanese Sen and finished with yellow hue that resembled korina) of Destroyer (Explorer), Rocket Roll Sr. (Flying V) and Future (their rendition of the mythical Moderne) looked cool, played well and sounded great, and – best of all – cost about the same as Gibson’s homely entry-level models.

These Japanese copies had gotten so good that the American companies pushed back by filing copyright infringement lawsuits, but Ibanez in particular was already one step ahead of them and was transitioning to their own original models by then. Ibanez’s Artist, Iceman and Musician models produced during the late ’70s were quite impressive thanks to all the knowhow they absorbed from studying the classics.

Acoustic Avenues

Although the C.F. Martin guitar company did not get snapped up by corporate ownership like most other large guitar companies during this era, they also experienced similar lapses in quality control during the ’70s.

More than any other company, Martin suffered the most when Brazil stopped exporting Brazilian rosewood in 1967 and they were forced to transition to Indian rosewood by 1969 when their supply ran out. However, the change to Indian rosewood was less of a problem than the increasingly heavy-handed building processes that Martin was using at the time.

Martin’s management determined that they were losing too much money from warranty claims, so they began building guitars with thicker braces and tops, heavier, more durable finishes and clunky necks.

The guitars were so overbuilt that you could probably use them as baseball bats without damaging them, but the sound quality was adversely affected. Just like with the electric guitar market, this led to increased interest in vintage Martins as well as an influx of low-cost Japanese copies.

Takamine made a huge splash with low-priced copies of Martin’s D-18 and D-28 dreadnoughts, and Alvarez-Yairi made higher-end copies for players who didn’t mind spending a little more. Yamaha also increased its market share significantly during this time thanks to aggressive distribution efforts.

It wasn’t all bad news for American-made acoustics though. Guild continued to make good instruments throughout the decade, and their 12-string models from the ’70s in particular are highly regarded.

Ovation introduced its first models during the ’60s, but the brand truly came to prominence during the ’70s as Ovation and their offshoot Adamas brand acoustic-electrics became common fixtures on concert stages.

Parts Is Parts

If you couldn’t afford a custom guitar from Hamer or B.C. Rich and didn’t want a Japanese import, another appealing alternative for guitarists was to build their own instruments using pre-made bodies and necks and upgraded replacement parts that had started appearing on the market.

This approach got a huge boost when Eddie Van Halen burst onto the scene in 1978 playing a black and white striped custom Strat that he cobbled together from scrapped parts and a neck and body that cost him less than $200. Boogie Bodies, Charvel, DiMarzio and Schecter were the leading sources for DIY guitar builders who wanted to make their own custom hot rods or upgrade their factory instruments.

Amps

High-Gain Heroes

Randall Smith’s Mesa Boogie amps featuring a revolutionary cascaded high-gain preamp design forever changed the guitar amp industry. The Mesa Boogie Mark I amp introduced during the early ’70s gave guitarists greatly expanded control of overdrive and saturation over a wide range of volume levels ideal for small venues and recording studios to large concert stages.

The tones of the Mark I were thick, luscious and sweet, providing a vast tonal palette, thanks to its reactive tone controls and optional 5-band graphic EQ and delivering a musical expressiveness that slayed the competition. The Mark II model introduced during the late ’70s was the first production amp to offer channel switching, paving the path for today’s multi-channel high-gain amps.

Master of Volume

By the dawn of the ’70s, Marshall’s 50- and 100-watt heads had become the standard for distorted hard rock guitar tone. The problem was that these amps could only achieve those desirable tones with the volume turned up to excruciating levels.

The introduction of the 100-watt Marshall 2203 and 50-watt Marshall 2204 heads featuring master volume controls provided a very attractive solution to this dilemma.

Although the quality of the distorted tone wasn’t quite the same as that of a fully cranked non-master volume Marshall, it still sounded very good and some players even preferred it. Hard rock got a lot crunchier and grittier during the late ’70s, and these Marshall master volume amps played a big role in that.

Solid-State Survivors

Solid-state amps had a bad reputation during the ’70s mainly due to the failures of early models developed by Fender, Standel and a few other companies during the ’60s. However, amp engineers persevered and by the ’70s a variety of solid-state amps that actually sounded good made their way to the market.

Standouts from this period include Gibson/Norlin’s Lab Series, which Dan Pearce designed with help from synth pioneer Bob Moog (who also developed the active electronics for Gibson’s RD guitars and various Maestro pedals). A Lab Series L5 became B.B. King’s amp of choice from the late ’70s though the end of his career, and a Lab Series was Elliot Easton’s main amp on the Cars’ debut album.

The Roland JC-120 came out in 1975 and still remains in production today. Its crystalline clean tone and hypnotic “stereo” chorus effects set a standard for solid-state tone that no competitor has ever really matched. Another noteworthy solid-state amp from the ’70s is the Acoustic 270, which was used by Frank Zappa and Pete Townshend.

Pignose 7-100

Although walls of stacked amplifiers ruled the concert stage during the ’70s, many guitarists used much smaller amps in the recording studio. One favorite secret weapon during this period was the tiny Pignose 7-100, powered by six AA batteries and delivering five watts of output to its five-inch speaker.

The Pignose can be heard on classic tunes that include Joe Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way and Eric Clapton’s Motherless Children, and Michael Schenker prominently used a Pignose to record crunchy rhythm tracks and brassy, horn-like lead tones on several of UFO’s late-’70s albums.

Effects

Pedal Mania

Some cool stuff was happening during the ’70s in guitar and amp design, but the real action was taking place in the realm of stomp box effects.

Whereas pedal effects during the ’60s were mostly limited to fuzz boxes, treble boosters, wah pedals and the Uni-Vibe, a vast new range of effects became available during the ’70s, including phase shifters, flangers, chorus, analog delay, compression, EQ, envelope filters, octave dividers, ring modulators and more.

Dozens of new companies dedicated to building effects devices were established during this period, which greatly expanded the growth of the musical instrument industry.

Leading companies from this period included Coloursound, DOD, Electro-Harmonix, Foxx, Ibanez, Maestro, Morley, Mu-Tron, MXR, Roland/Boss, Ross, Seamoon-A/DA and Tycobrahe.

There are too many standouts to list completely here, but products of note include distortion boxes like the EHX Big Muff Pi and MXR Distortion +, early flangers (A/DA, MXR and EHX Electric Mistress), the Mu-Tron III envelope filter and mammoth Bi-Phase, the Boss CE-1 and CE-2 Chorus and the first Boss compact pedals (OD-1 Overdrive, PH-1 Phaser and SP-1 Spectrum), the MXR Phase 90 and Dyna Comp, Foxx Tone Machine... too much good stuff.

Talk Ain’t Cheap

Any discussion of guitar effects during the ’70s would be remiss to omit the talk box. The sound of guitarists bleating and barfing through their talk box tubes was heard on countless hits during this era, from Joe Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way in 1973 through Jeff Beck’s She’s a Woman, Frampton Comes Alive!, Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion and Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog in the mid ’70s, full circle to Joe Walsh with the Eagles on Those Shoes in 1979.

Devices like Kustom’s “The Bag,” the Heil Talk Box, Dean Markley Voice Box and Electro-Harmonix Golden Throat made this effect accessible to the masses, but it didn’t really catch on beyond professional stages and studios due to the complex setup and requisite commitment.

Tape Echo

Stand-alone tape echo units were available throughout the ’60s, but the effect really didn’t catch on until the ’70s as the capabilities of units produced then had greatly expanded. The game-changer was the Maestro EP-3 Echoplex, a solid-state unit that offered a sound-on-sound mode that provided cool looping and layering effects, such as the effects created by Brian May on Queen’s Brighton Rock. The EP-3 was relatively road-worthy and reliable, and soon it became a fixture in many performing guitarists’ rigs.

Roland offered worthy competition to the Echoplex with its Space Echo series tape delay units. Many players found the sound quality of the Space Echo delay effects more refined and polished, and Space Echo models with built-in reverb became a de rigueur studio tool for dub producers in Jamaica. The Space Echo can also create trippy psychedelic pitch bend effects when the speed control is manipulated.

EBow

In 1976 Heet Sound introduced the EBow, an unusual hand-held magnetic string driver that produces infinite string vibration (at least until the battery wears down or the user’s wrist goes numb) to mimic bowed strings, horns, woodwinds, synths, elephants, seagulls and angry wives.

In some ways it’s an instrument all unto itself, which explains why Heet Sound never stopped making the things. The EBow is a cheap, fun and creatively inspiring device – something that all guitarists can use more often than not. Buck Dharma used one on (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, and you really can’t get more ’70s than that without a mustache and white satin jumpsuit.

Accessories

Replacement Pickups

One of guitarists’ biggest beefs about guitars made by Fender and Gibson during the ’70s was that the pickups either didn’t have the sonic richness and expressiveness of vintage pickups or the output was too weak.

DiMarzio was one of the first companies to address this concern by offering their vintage-voiced PAF and high-output Super Distortion humbuckers and Fat Strat, SDS-1 and Pre-BS Tele single coils. Seymour Duncan made pickups for Mighty Mite before setting up shop under his own name, and Bill Lawrence made pickups that were used by Joe Perry and Brad Whitford with Aerosmith.

Red Rhodes’ Velvet Hammer pickups also enjoyed a devoted cult following. These pickups offered an inexpensive and effective means for significantly improving a guitar’s tone, something guitarists truly needed during the ’70s.

Strobe Tuners

In this day and age where one can download a chromatic tuner for free as a phone app, it’s hard to imagine how guitarists coped with primitive devices like tuning forks and pitch pipes to tune their instruments. Strobe tuners existed before the ’70s, but they were bulky, expensive tube-driven beasts that weren’t especially convenient for bands playing at Mom’s Beer and Boobs Emporium.

Compact strobe tuners like the Conn StroboTuner ST-11 and Peterson Model 420 (heyyy, maaaan!) may have still been a bit too costly for the average garage band, but they quickly proliferated in recording studios and touring rigs, paving the way for affordable tuners that emerged during the ’80s.

In 1973, the band who just a few years later would be known as the “Bad Boys from Boston” dropped their debut album, Aerosmith. Its release set off a chain of events that eventually led to their being nicknamed “America’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band.” And while that’s big-time praise – not to mention one hell of a nickname – you have to remember Dream On is on that debut album.

That said, even though “Dream On” would – eventually – gather more than a billion streams on Spotify alone, it wasn’t enough to catapult Aerosmith to success 51 years ago.

In fact, their debut was so lackluster, sales-wise, that Columbia Records was reluctant to give the band a second shot and only did so if the band’s double-barred lead guitar tandem of Joe Perry and Brad Whitford agreed to allow studio pros Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner to sub for them on 1974’s Get Your Wings.

Looking back on it, Perry recalls being “not happy about it” but understands that you had to take your licks to get by in the biz. “It was just one of those things,” he tells Guitar World. “The record companies were in the business of making money; they didn’t really care how you felt about it. It’s a tough business. It is what it is.

“It was a business, and they didn’t care if they were selling music or selling washing machines, you know? It’s not like you’re walking up to someone with open arms who will give you whatever you need. It was more like, ‘This is how it’s gonna be.’”

Perry, an iconic guitarist who spent the bulk of the Seventies laying down sleazy riffs and off-the-cuff solos beside his fellow Toxic Twin, Steven Tyler, learned a hell of a lot from the Get Your Wings experience, saying, “We made up for it with the next one.”

Indeed, they did, as 1975’s Toys in the Attic, featuring gargantuan classic rock staples Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion, plus deep cuts like Adam’s Apple and No More No More, blew the damn lid off the thing.

It was everything Perry and his pals had ever wanted, but they quickly learned that success, while thrilling, was a lot to handle. “I think that’s what ended up taking us down – the shock of it,” Perry says. “It was just our time. But really, the ones that dictated what they wanted were the record companies. They could sit there and say, ‘This is the newest…’ and sign anyone they wanted.”

Success came hard and fast for Aerosmith, as they rattled off two more killer records in 1976’s Rocks – a beloved sleaze-rock staple – and 1977’s Draw the Line – a great record, but one frozen in time as depicting a band going entirely off the rails. Perry says, “Everybody grows up at a different pace, and that’s probably why I eventually left.”

To that end, after the release of 1978’s Live! Bootleg, Perry left Aerosmith in the middle of 1979’s Night in the Ruts, a record he looks back on fondly, even if he didn’t play on all of it.

“I wasn’t really mad at them; we just weren’t getting along,” Perry says. “We just had too much, too soon. We had just kept going since the early Seventies, and the glue that kept us together started to get unstuck. We kind of lost the vision and didn’t know what was next. Back then, making it to 27 was like being on borrowed time, so it was tough to live elbow to elbow. It seemed like we’d done everything we hoped to do, and we had no idea what would come next.”

What came next was the near-end of a rock ’n’ roll institution. Perry went on to form his Joe Perry Project, and Brad Whitford left the band a couple of years later. Tyler, Joey Kramer and Tom Hamilton stayed on and hired Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay, but it was never the same to most onlookers.

It all worked out triumphantly in the end, and all involved – including the band itself – are alive to tell the tale. But at the time, things seemed bleak. “I remember being quoted as saying that we ‘weren’t ready for the Eighties,’ and that was true,” Perry says. “But personally, even through all the bullshit, we still loved each other, and we still do – you know what I mean?”

“In my heart,” he says. “I never thought, ‘I’ll never play with them again.’ It was just like, at the moment, we just needed a break. I mean, it was a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff together, some good and some bad. That’s just how it was.”

Steven had a version of Dream On in his back pocket coming in. How did you add to that?

“I’m not sure how many of the lyrics he actually had done or what the chords he had were exactly, but we were just learning to play together and figure out what we could actually do.

“I just added what I thought it should sound like on guitar, and would sound great when we played it live, and also gave it a kind of different flavor. I think we made it a little more of a rock thing, and we brought that song to life. We all put those little touches in there and turned it into an Aerosmith song.”

Aerosmith’s debut, Aerosmith, wasn’t initially a hit. Was that tough to deal with, considering how hard you’d worked and how young you were?

“We were getting used to the fact that it was going to be a fight. It took me a couple of years to even… I mean, we were so focused on getting the band to sound the way it should, and we really weren’t even sure what people heard.

“We were a good live band, and I know we were good enough to where people remembered seeing us, but it took a while to get a record contract, and it took us a while to get a manager. So we were pretty used to the fight, and I think that stuck with us. We felt like we had to prove ourselves.”

Considering what you and Brad have accomplished, it’s hard to believe Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner subbed for you on a lot of tracks from Get Your Wings. Was that a tough pill to swallow?

“It was. I look back on it now, and we had Jack Douglas producing it, and Bob Ezrin was involved. Those were the guys [Hunter and Wagner] that were great guitar players and that Bob liked to use. So they had them play on a couple of songs, and Brad and I were not happy about it.

“This was our last go-around; we had to do it because the record label [Columbia] barely gave us the second record deal. But Bob Ezrin turned out to be a really good friend, and it was nothing personal. Back then, Brad and I were still learning how to work. But we made up for it with the next one.”

You sure did. Toys in the Attic was, and is, a monster. While working on Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion, did you know you were onto something?

“They come out how they come out, you know? I mean… I knew that, well, even after the first record, I knew I could write songs. So I felt like it was just another one. I’ve written other songs I felt were really good, where the tempo is just right, and at different points in our career, it might have been a huge record. I don’t know… so much of it has to do with timing and luck.”

And resiliency, which Aerosmith had in spades from the jump.

“You’ve got to make your own luck. You can’t sit around on the couch waiting for a hit. You’ve gotta go out and do what you can to get yourself in the right position. And then, there’s that last 20 or 30 percent that’s, like, “Holy shit,” and lightning strikes, you know? So much of it has to do with being in the right place at the right time and doing all you can do when you are.”

In terms of the gear we hear on Toys, you were using a fair amount of Stratocasters, right?

“I had an old Strat. I remember we were at the Record Plant around the time we were doing Toys in the Attic, and somebody stole my guitar out of the studio. It was my Strat, so I stepped out to buy a new one from Manny’s Music [in NYC], and that was the guitar I used.

“That was pretty much my main Strat for a couple of years, but it’s gone now. To try and find a Strat like that, you’ll pay an arm and a leg for it. They were making pretty good guitars back then. [Laughs]”

Rocks is, more or less, universally loved, with even several members of Aerosmith, like yourself, naming it as the definitive Aerosmith record of the Seventies. A personal favorite of mine is one you wrote called Combination.

“Oh, thank you. It was one I did where I just had this riff kind of thing. It was a real case of seeing what you know and saying and doing what you know.

“I took a few of those things and put them into the lyrics. But I really hadn’t put that vibe into any other song, except for maybe Sweet Emotion. The last bit is kinda like that. That same kinda vibe was coming through – and to a head – on Combination.”

By the time Rocks was recorded, what did your typical rig consist of?

“I was using a [Fender] Twin pretty often, and I had a Fender and a Marshall going at the same time. I’m pretty sure I had a 50-watt plexi at that point, and that was basically all I had in the studio.

“I also had a couple of [Gibson] Les Paul Juniors and the ’59 Les Paul. Those were my main guitars, but I had many. If I wanted a new guitar, I sold or traded another. I remember trading guitars with Johnny Thunders a couple of times back then for a Les Paul Junior.”

These days, you can see what a band is doing on social media 24/7, but it wasn’t that way in the Seventies. Can you paint a picture of what life was like on the road for Aerosmith back then?

“We traveled a lot. You could get from Terre Haute, Indiana to Charleston pretty easily. And then, we’d leave for Atlanta or Tampa and go on to L.A. We really didn’t ever do the tour-bus thing; we went from driving ourselves to flying commercial to chartering planes. And then we’d stay in Holiday Inns, and those kinda places because the nice hotels would say, ‘No rock ’n’ roll bands!’

“Other than that, it was pretty much a show, and it was good. It must have been fun to watch. You’d check in, get your bags, go to the room, do soundcheck, do the show, then go back to the hotel, hang out and go to the next city. And after the show was mostly time spent at the hotel bar, which was a lot of fun.”

Young guys in cities in the middle of nowhere must have been a recipe for all sorts of trouble.

“Yeah, it was. [Laughs] I mean, I think that’s when the TVs started going out the window. But, okay, I know that sounds like fun, but you have to be pretty loaded to do something like that. And then, after you look at the expense reports, I don’t think I got that much fun out of it. I can say I did it, but that was it. It’s so not what I’d do now, but, like you said, we were young guys having fun, and we had nobody to tell us, ‘No.’”

By the time Draw the Line came out in 1977, the wheels were starting to get a little wobbly on the wagon. How would you describe the state of Aerosmith by then?

“A lot of personal stuff that we didn’t let bother us in the beginning was starting to show itself. We were still touring, and we’d get the itinerary and that was it. We’d show up at Logan Airport [in Boston] and I’d be gone. We were getting older; some of us were getting married and some had girlfriends. It’s like when you get older and stop being mad at your parents, you know? All that stuff is part of growing up.”

Draw the Line was still a great album, with an underrated highlight being Bright Light Fright. That always seemed like your answer to punk rock, which was blooming.

“That was really it; I loved punk. I remember when I’d be riding in the limo, or whatever, I’d hear the Sex Pistols or the [New York] Dolls and I’d turn it up. I’d be like, “Yeah, this is fucking rock ’n’ roll, man. This is great. So, Bright Light Fright was about as close as we were going to get to punk. We dabbled in all kinds of music, like country, but that was kinda my version of [punk].”

When people think of the guitars you used in the Seventies, your ’59 Les Paul often comes up. But there’s a photo of you from the Live! Bootleg album holding your B.C. Rich Bich. Where did that guitar come from?

“Our sound man, Nite Bob [Robert Czaykowski], hooked me up with a lot of guitars back then. B.C. Rich was making some guitars that didn’t look like Les Pauls or Stratocasters, and there was a quality of build that I liked. There was something about the Mockingbird and the Rich Bich, and Brad bought one, so we were a couple of the first guys to use them.

“I remember being in the studio around then, and the phone rang, and the secretary said, ‘Joe, phone call for you.’ It was Lou Reed. I’d never met him, and he called me, saying, 'I saw a picture of you with this guitar…' That guitar has a distinct sound that doesn’t work for some things, but it sounds great on others. It has a really cool thing about it, almost like a flange thing. It’s really amazing, though it doesn’t work for everything.”

I’ve read that you weren’t sure about doing the Live! Bootleg record, and having it be raw and un-messed with was a dealbreaker.

“One of my favorite records is by the Kinks, Live at Kelvin Hall, which is kind of hard to find. But that’s what I’d heard, and it was probably my first live record. I remember hearing it, and that’s where I kind of got my education of, ‘Here’s a real good product.’

“It made an impression on me because the audience was as loud as the band and exciting to hear. It sounded live and raw, and when I found out that people were overdubbing and ‘fixing’ their live redoes, I was like, ‘What the fuck? I don’t want to do that.’

“If somebody else wants to do that, that’s their business, but I wasn’t down for it. If we were gonna put out something “live,” it should be live. Even down to the cover, we had a band meeting about that and wanted to have the coffee stains and the whole bootleg look.”

You touched on why you left, which happened during the recording of Night in the Ruts in ’79. That must have been difficult, given how much you’d been through with the guys.

“I’ll tell you, at that point, it took a lot. You have to imagine that it was everything you just described. I remember a big part of why I left was not just personal stuff but business stuff. I wanted to do an audit of the business and see where our money was. We didn’t pay any attention to that stuff; we would get checks and put them in the bank.

“We knew we were doing well, and we made sure the taxes were paid and all that shit, but we didn’t have a handle on it. I remember telling the guys, ‘We should do an audit.’ I was talking to the other guys, and it was all part of the business; I’m all for everybody getting their fair share, but I don’t want… it just seemed like they didn’t want to. They said, ‘Everything’s fine.’”

Can you remember when you finally decided to quit?

“One day, I just quit. There was an incident and a big fight backstage, and it was just a bullshit fight. But I also wasn’t happy with what was going on behind the scenes; it felt like we were being told where to go and when to go. Nobody seemed to be looking out for us as far as caring or burning out, and I was trying to get some kind of handle on that.

“So I got my own lawyer and said, ‘If they don’t wanna do it, I’m gonna do it myself. How much did we make last year,’ and blah, blah, blah. There was stuff going on and I wanted to check it out, but I couldn’t get the rest of the guys to go along with it. I finally told my lawyer, ‘Call them up; tell them I’m not coming back,’ and I didn’t. I felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders. I thought, ‘I’m just gonna put a band together, do a record, go out, tour and have fun.’”

In terms of the ’70s, through the highs and lows, what comes to mind when you think back on it all?

“Things went the way they went. Like I’ve said before, if we’d had our wits about us, we would have just said, ‘Let’s take a year off.’ We certainly had enough money to take time off, but there was too much bullshit. We couldn’t get it together to talk to each other like that, so that’s how it went.”

Over the decades, Kerry King has been endorsed by B.C. Rich, ESP and now Dean. As much as he has always loved the company’s guitars, he wasn’t ready to work with them when they first approached him shortly after the death of former Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell.

“I was friends with a lot of the Dean people, even though I didn’t use their guitars ’cause Dime was there, and he and I were good friends,” King says.

“When Dime unfortunately left us, Dean wanted me the next day. They needed a new guy. I had a great deal with B.C. Rich, and Dean didn’t want to match it. I’m like, ‘Why am I leaving if you’re not gonna match my deal?’ So I stayed with B.C. Rich until almost the end of the Slayer run.”

That’s when Dean made King an offer he couldn’t refuse, and, just in time for his musical rebirth as Kerry King, he was adopted by a new guitar company.

“That’s my new family now,” he says. “I’ve only used Dean onstage for about a month, so it’s still very new to me. But I did the new album with Dean guitars. I knew the owner’s dad [Elliott Rubinson] before he passed away, and now I’m really tight with everyone over there. And I’m super loyal. If you don’t give me a reason to leave, I won’t.”

To date, Dean has created two signature guitars for King, the USA Kerry King V (limited edition 50 PC) and the USA Kerry King Overlord Battalion Grey, and there’s more to come. Below, King discusses the particulars of his Dean guitars and how he landed his past endorsement deals.

Your first B.C. Rich was a Mockingbird. Was that before you were endorsed?

“Yeah, we certainly weren’t made of money back then. My dad was my sponsor for a while. He would live vicariously through me. He played a little bit of guitar, so he would scour the free newspaper, The Recycler, ’cause everyone would put guitars, amps, all kinds of shit in there.

“He found a B.C. Rich Mockingbird. I didn’t even know what a B.C. Rich was. He took me to see it, and I didn’t have any idea what all the switches were for, but I’m like, ‘If I can’t make a cool sound with all these switches, there’s gotta be something fucking wrong with me.’”

You’re playing the Mockingbird on the back of Slayer’s first album, 1983’s Show No Mercy.

“That guitar belonged to the Hard Rock Japan for a while. I donated it. And then when I got together with my wife of 21 years almost, she was like, ‘You should get that back.’ And I went, ‘Yeah, you’re kind of right.’ So I traded them another one for it. I got in contact with the manager of that Hard Rock, and he understood the situation. I offered him something else and he said, ‘Fine – it means more to you than it needs to be here.’”

That guitar led to your relationship with B.C. Rich. Didn’t they paint it red for you?

“That was back in the day when I didn’t know what strap locks were. We were at rehearsal, and I got underneath my strap with my thumb. The guitar undid itself, the head came down on the ground like a fucking guillotine and the headstock broke off.

“That was not a nice day, but it gave me my first introduction to the people at B.C. Rich, the Rico family. They put a truss rod and two other rods in it so it would never happen again – just in case I dropped it. I had them paint it red ’cause it was Koa. It still is Koa, but it’s a red Koa. Call me a dick now, but I didn’t think I wanted a natural guitar.”

Did that lead to your first endorsement?

“The second B.C. Rich I got, or that anyone saw, was the black Warlock I played in the early days. I think the Mockingbird sounded better, but the Warlock looked cool for what I was trying to portray. The B.C. Rich factory was only about 20 minutes from my parents’ house, so I would go to the factory five days a week, just drooling and checking shit out. One day the public-relations guy said, ‘Hey, we want to give you this guitar.’ It might have been a Bich.

“I was maybe 20. I looked at him and said, “Why?” It didn’t occur to me that companies endorse players and give them guitars. The guy showed me a stack of letters from people that wanted to play the guitars that I had, and I went, “Oh, wow.” So that’s how I got my first B.C. Rich deal.”

You stayed with B.C. Rich for a long time, endorsing guitars with various design elements and price points. They did a signature V for you when South of Heaven came out (1988), and you played the Bich, Ironbird and the Beast V. What brought you to ESP?

“That was right after we did Seasons in the Abyss [1990]. B.C. Rich leased their company to Class Axe, and Class Axe couldn’t make a neck-through-body guitar. I’m like, ‘Well, call me when you can.’ And they never did, so I went to ESP for about a decade. I was a fixture for them at NAMM during the ’90s.”

What brought you back to B.C. Rich?

“I was always friends with the Rico family, and when they got their lease back from Class Axe, they kept wanting me to come back to B.C. Rich. I was wary ’cause the way we broke up was not good. I had ordered a Mockingbird Supreme back then, which had cloud inlays and all the electronics.

“I had them make some sexy natural ones. They called me and said, ‘Hey, this guitar’s done, but we’re selling the company, so if you want it, you need to come buy it.’ And I said, ‘Fine, gimme ’til tomorrow.’ That guitar was gorgeous. They didn’t wait. They sold it to someone else, which was a bullshit move.”

How did they get you back?

“I was happy with ESP. They treated me well for a long time, and I’m still friends with the owner. And then one day, I finally decided to give B.C. Rich another chance. I said, ‘Alright; just so we’re sure, build me a guitar and if I like it, we’ll roll.’ I think that might have been the first V with the tribal paint job. So I went back over, and we went on that tribal offshoot for 20 years, with the fire backgrounds and the marble backgrounds. We got a lot of mileage out of that artwork.”

Did you feel like you got all that you could out of your relationship with B.C. Rich when you struck a deal with Dean?

“The Rico family was out of B.C. Rich again. They belonged to HHI. So it was corporate, and I have very strong times with family businesses. I was friends with the Marshall family. I was friends with the Rico family. And I was friends with a lot of Dean people, but I needed some shit changed because Dean was Dime’s label and me and Dime were tight – but I don’t like the guitars Dime played. A fucking headstock that looks like a baby guitar? I don’t need all that fucking real estate up there.

“So we made the headstock look like it’s got devil horns. I took what was reminiscent of my B.C. Rich headstock and combined them into something new that neither one can claim so nobody can say, ‘Oh, it looks like your B.C. Rich.” And that’s how I got my ‘V’ with the points at the edges – and the Overlord, which I put out last year.”

What other guitars are you working on with Dean?

“I’ve got a new A&R guy there. I said, ‘Okay, for the purists, let’s make – and nobody has seen this – a couple of classic ‘V’s for people that don’t like the points on my first Dean V. I had one made trans-black with a really classy inlay. It’s a conservative ‘V’ with teeth. It’s got an edge to it. The other new one I’ve got has this beautiful inlay on it that people will just have to see. I’ll have both of those when I go on tour.’”

• From Hell I Rise is out now via Reigning Phoenix Music America.

Due to the breadth of her songwriting accomplishments, which date back to her days as a teenage phenomenon with The Runaways, Lita Ford’s guitar exploits are sometimes overlooked.

But a quick scan through her discography – which includes three-chord chug and some tasty solos in songs like Cherry Bomb – shows that, even at a young age, she understood guitar was an instrument of expression rather than a means to show off.

Then there’s the melodic slow-burner Close My Eyes Forever, which found Ford duet with Ozzy Osbourne en route to chart-topping success; or the sing-it-like-you-mean-it stylings heard on one of her most well-loved tracks, Kiss Me Deadly. It all proves she was more than prepared to stake her claim as leading light in the mostly male-driven ‘80s glam scene.

Alternating between her well-worn Gibson SG and any number of shred-worthy B.C. Rich curios, Ford has helped define what it means to be a proper lead for over 45 years. Looking back on her impact, she says: “I’m grateful I’m still alive. That’s one thing. And I’m grateful I’m still able to get up on stage and play with my kickass band.”

“I feel like I’ve come full circle, or at least, almost,” she adds. “And it’s been a lot to learn – if you can make it that far in life. I’ve had the chance to play with some really great musicians. It’s good to be the queen!”

What sounds inspired you most when you first picked up guitar?

“I was not your normal little girl, I guess. At 11 years old, I just had to play guitar. I really didn’t have any main inspirations or influences, but my mother bought me an acoustic guitar from Sears and Roebuck, the department store. I’m like, ‘Mom, what is this?’ I expected something electric that had some volume!

“I really didn’t quite know what to do with it, but I started learning riffs on it, and for a couple of years, I played it. I learned Ritchie Blackmore – Deep Purple was something I grew up on, and Black Sabbath. I‘m playing all these Black Sabbath riffs on this little acoustic guitar!”

When did you acquire your first electric guitar?

“I ended up getting rid of that acoustic and got a job in a medical facility when I was 14. I lied about my age! I saved up enough money to buy a Gibson SG. It was the shit – I loved it so much, and it made all my dreams come true.

“I hitchhiked to the first festival in Anaheim, California [Cal Jam, 1974], and Deep Purple were on the bill, Black Sabbath were on the bill, Emerson Lake & Palmer were on the bill, Rare Earth and Black Oak Arkansas – it changed my life.

“I found a hole in the fence and I crept through, and I was right up front. I don’t know how I ended up there. There I was, watching the TV guys climb the ladder while filming Ritchie Blackmore, and then Blackmore knocked the guy off the ladder. Do you remember that?”

I’ve seen images and heard about it!

“I was right in front of them, and I didn’t know if it was staged or planned, but I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen in my life! And, of course, I love Black Sabbath and all those Tony Iommi riffs. It was just life-changing stuff.”

I’ve seen photos of you with an SG from the ‘70s while you were with The Runaways. Is that the same guitar?

“It’s the same SG, yeah. My father used to have a Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder, and I used to take it in my room; it was huge – as big as somebody’s oven! I would take it apart and disconnect the speakers, and move the speakers off to one side and the other.

“I would plug my guitar in and slap on the echo, and it just sounded like God. I didn’t have an amplifier back then; I was too young to have all the bits and pieces and bells and whistles. That reel-to-reel just kicked ass. It was as good as a Marshall stack as far as I was concerned!”

At some point in the ‘70s, you were playing in a club, and the story goes that Led Zeppelin asked you to play bass. Was that before or during The Runaways?

“The Runaways were playing at Gazzarri’s or The Starwood – I’m having trouble with names because those places aren’t there anymore. It was upstairs… yeah, it was The Starwood.

“It was early Runaways days – you can tell we were like 17 or something. But Jimmy Page and Robert Plant came to see the show, and The Runaways were quite the novelty, being teenage girls that could rip it up, kick ass and rock the house.

“The places were always packed with fans, and our manager at the time, Kim Fowley, said, ‘Okay, girls, gather around and get a picture with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.’ I was scooched in there like, ‘Oh yeah, great!’ I grew up listening to them and I was still growing up.

“Robert Plant said, ‘We’re looking to replace our bass player, John Paul Jones,’ and I thought, ‘I’m not hearing this. I refuse to believe that this is really coming out of his mouth.’ I thought, ‘He’s got to be joking,’ because John Paul Jones is God on bass, as far as I’m concerned.

“But that’s what he said. And I walked away, just thinking, ‘Oh, that was nice. That was nice of him to look at me like that.’ In those days a lot of people didn’t look at us as musicians because we were female and we were young. They never took us seriously as musicians.”

It’s interesting they wanted you to play bass since you’re a guitar player.

“I got into The Runaways because they heard I was a bass player. I had played bass for a few shows in a local band in Long Beach, California, covering for somebody who got sick. Then everyone thought I was a bass player.

“So, I don’t know… but that’s what came out of Robert Plant’s mouth. And I was like, ‘Nah, he didn’t really say that’ – but he did.”

You were a pioneer when many women weren’t playing lead guitar. Was that something you were aware of then?

“I really tried not to think about it. I just did what I wanted to do. I wasn’t trying to carve out a path or the way for whatever was coming behind me. I just wanted to be a leader, and I just wanted to play guitar.”

Was it difficult to transition from the punk rock nature of The Runaways to the ‘80s hair metal era?

“That’s a good question. It wasn’t easy. I had to figure that out. Because The Runaways obviously had a certain sound, vibe and look. After The Runaways broke up, I had to create what Lita was going to be. And I thought, ‘Well, what does she look like? What does she play? What does she sing? Who is in her band? How do I want to go about doing this?’

“It was almost like there was me, myself, and I. One of the things was that Nikki Sixx cut my hair – and it’s never been the same since he chopped off all my long locks! He gave me that shag haircut, and that helped create the ‘80s look. And then there were the torn-up jeans, those torn-up jeans that I wore in the Kiss Me Deadly video… they have a story.”

Oh, do tell!

“I wanted to show some skin, but not like a centerfold would; I wanted it to be more on The Ramones’ level. So I bought a pair of jeans off a construction worker on the way home from Lemmy’s house one morning; my girlfriend was driving me because I was too drunk to drive. I said, ‘I have to have this guy’s jeans.’

“I got out of the vehicle, gave him a hundred bucks, and he gave me the jeans. I took those jeans to my clothes designer, and she tricked them out, hung some beads off of them, and added some leather. I wore them in the Kiss Me Deadly video – the jeans, together with the hair and B.C. Rich guitars, were the look.

“B.C. Rich guitars were God back then; I put them through the ultimate test. Those guitars weren’t like a Strat that Blackmore played, or a Les Paul like Jimmy Page would play. They were something different. It was a lead guitar; they were just kickass and had so much power. The preamps were so great.

“They allowed me to kick up the gain, the volume and the power without having to turn and physically go to the amp. And the DiMarzio pickups, the Super Distortion pickups are just badass, together with the preamps in those B.C. Rich guitars.

“I fell in love with the Kahler tremolo units. They’re just unbreakable, and God knows I tried to break them over and over; I couldn’t do it!”

B.C. Rich guitars have become synonymous with you, but you mentioned you loved your SG, too. What was it about the B.C. Rich guitars that made it easy to segue from the SG?

“You know, I never segued from that SG. It just doesn’t happen. It’s like an old pair of jeans, you know? You put them in your closet and come back to them every once in a while, and you love them; they’re special.

“That SG will always be special. I used to take a patch cord and cross the channels, because there are four. It added a bit more crunch where I didn’t have a preamp on the SG, and that’s why I had it added to the B.C. Rich.”

You went on hiatus from 1996 through 2007. After being away for so long, what was your approach to rebuilding your rig?

“Well, Grim Reaper guitarist Nick Bowcott gave me one of the very first DSL100s. I still have the old JCM800s from the ‘80s; there’s no amps like those. But the DSL100 sounded like God when Nick brought it into the studio, saying, ‘Lita, this is for you.’ 

“What I do now is profile the sound right into the Kemper. It’s easy to travel with, it’s lightweight; I can put it in a road case and carry it on a plane. I’ve got my DSL and I’ve got my JCM800 right there at my fingertips. It works.”

Some say they can’t tell the difference between a Kemper and an amp, and others say they miss the push of air. Which is it for you?

“Yeah, some say there’s no difference at all, but I feel it. Sometimes you can’t have everything with the way travel is these days. We just hired our own monitor man, and he’s really helping me to dial it in. 

“A lot of it is high and low-end volume and just being able to control the output of the Kempers. It’s not a JCM800, and not a DSL; it’s a different animal. It’s like putting a Rolls Royce into a Volkswagen body! There’s going to be a difference there, like it or not – you’ve just got to dial it in the best you can.”

Guitars aside, is there a piece of gear you can’t live without?

“I love my Jerry Cantrell [Jim Dunlop Cry Baby] wah; I would be pretty lost without it. I use it in multiple ways. The Wah was one thing I started way back in The Runaways days, and it was really not all that easy. People think you just plug it in and go; well, not really.

“The Jerry Cantrell wah has that deep sound I use on solos. I crack it open, change the treble, and I add some low and high-end when I really want to make those high notes scream. That’s the one piece of gear I have to have.”

Which solos from your career are your most definitive?

“Ah, let’s see… The Ripper solo is pretty badass. That was a gnarly solo. And everyone knows Close My Eyes Forever; it’s not a shredding solo, but it’s a kind of solo where you can walk away from it and hum and sing it in your head. It’s very melodic, and a lot of people are getting away from that. 

“And as for that real melodic-sounding stuff, Kiss Me Deadly is melodic. I don’t think it’s so much about how many notes you can cram into one second of guitar playing; do those notes matter? Do they count?”

Do you feel modern guitarists are getting too far away from melodic playing and relying on too many notes?

“Yeah, some of them. Some of them seem to get lost and don’t really have any meaning. I think solos should have a beginning, a middle and an end. And I think, to really make it count, it helps if you play off the melody of the song.

“That sounds like a no-brainer, but a lot of people don’t do it! It’s just like, ‘Okay, solo!’ and it’s like, ‘Well, what the fuck was that? Oh, man, okay, so you’re done? Alright…’

“I think it’s important to make that last note count – make it scream, make it sing, make it mean something. And make the first note count, and you get the whole middle of the solo – make it count.”

• Ford has a series of North American shows booked across the year.

It’s nothing out of the ordinary to find metal players using words like ‘weapon’ to describe the instruments in their hands, but in the case of Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Andy James it’s a lot more than hyperbolic wordplay.

His new B.C. Rich Assassin signature – which was announced last month and comes in six, seven and eight-string forms – has a Pitchfork headstock that could impale just about any living creature it comes into contact with.

When James connects with Guitar World from his home in Las Vegas, where the quintet are based, we jokingly ask if his bandmates have been looking a bit worried and keeping their distance. You know, just in case they discover a whole new meaning to songs like Lift Me Up and The Bleeding...

“Well, yeah, our singer Ivan [Moody] seems to be staying away from my side of the stage!” grins the British virtuoso, who cut his teeth making tutorial videos for companies like Lick Library and playing in bands such as Sacred Mother Tongue, as well as releasing his own solo music.

“Seriously, though, I was talking to B.C. Rich about headstocks and they were showing all these different ones they’d made in the past. And I stumbled on this one, which was actually on a 12-string acoustic!”

Naturally, it took a bit of tweaking to make it work for an electric instrument – James revealing how the headstock was eventually narrowed and lengthened, with the tuning pegs spaced out compared to the original design. Their efforts resulted in quite possibly the most dangerous headstock ever conceived and something that screamed the words ‘heavy’ and ‘metal’ like nothing else in existence...

“We ended up this mammoth Eye of Sauron-style headstock!” continues James. “It’s very pointy and metal, and very B.C. Rich. But I can also see it’s a Marmite guitar, people will either love it or hate it, which is great. If everyone loves something, weirdly it doesn’t get talked about much. This signature is like putting the cat amongst the pigeons. So yeah, go into your local shop and pick one up… just try not to kill anyone with it!”

As well as one of the most hazardous headstocks in the history of guitar manufacturing, the new line of instruments feature a low-profile C-shaped satin neck that’s “optimized for speed” and a heel-less neck-through construction.

Other notable features include the mahogany nyatah palaquium body, a flame maple top and a five-piece Shredzilla Ultra Slim Contour neck, plus an ebony fretboard and a pair of Fishman Fluence Modern humbuckers.

Given the kind of music James is well-known for playing and the history of B.C. Rich guitars in general – with famous users including Kerry King, Trey Azagthoth and Chuck Schuldiner, as well as classic rock giants like Slash, Joe Perry and Lita Ford – it’s a metal machine in every way imaginable.

James, who was a Kiesel endorsee until the new partnership, is proud to play his part in furthering the brand’s legacy, and feels a renaissance is long overdue...

“B.C. Rich are a legendary company for many reasons,” he notes. “Right now, there’s definitely a big push for new artists and models. I want to be part of it and help get it back up there again. Stranger Things gave them a kick up the arse, too, with the whole Eddie Munson connection.

“I’ve always been a B.C. Rich fan – one of the first guitars I picked up was a red Warlock that belonged to a friend. And obviously Slash is a big hero of mine and I’ve always been in love with that red Mockingbird he used for You Could Be Mine. They’re such an iconic brand.

“It just so happened that my five-year contract with Kiesel came up at the beginning of this year. I was talking to Zoltan [Bathory, co-guitarist] and Chris Kael [bassist] about gear, they’re both B.C. Rich artists. I figured I’d give them a try and see how I got on.

“Jumping from one company to another can be a bit weird if you’re used to a specific kind of guitar. It had to be on par, if not better, for me to consider moving, and I was blown away by the quality of what they sent over…”

Was it hard breaking the news to Kiesel?

“Me and [owner] Jeff Kiesel had a conversation. I like to be up-front and transparent. I’d expressed things I wanted to do moving forward as a member of FFDP. A few of them didn’t really fall inside the Kiesel business model, because it’s a direct-to-consumer custom shop. For example, if I wanted to do stage-played guitar packages or have worldwide distribution, it’s not really in their remit. 

“I was a bit worried about telling Jeff, but he was nice enough to say, ‘You’re my friend first, if this is going to help you in your career, go for it!’ Before Kiesel, I was with ESP for about 10 years. They gave me my first signature model, which was great, but things didn’t really work out. ESP had so many massive artists, I was way down in terms of the roster and priority list.

“I had some problems with production on a bunch of my guitars. The communication broke down to the point where I felt I should move. I met Jeff at a NAMM show and hit it off. He gave me a few options to look at and I signed a five-year contract. Everything was great; there were no problems with the company or Jeff himself.”

What amps are you currently using in FFDP?

“We’ve been using Kempers live. I’ve had mine for ages, well before I’d even joined the band. For my first 13 shows, because it was so last-minute, I had [ex-guitarist] Jason Hook’s EVH 5150III EL34 rig. It was a wet-dry-wet thing, with the two outer cabs being effected and the middle one being dry… an arena-worthy setup! 

“Me and my tech got talking about building a new rig for me. Because of the arenas, we felt it would be nice to have a massive rig. I’d never done that before, so the opportunity to spend money and do something cool was very attractive.

“We tried out different heads for a similar setup. I’ve got a Laney VH100 that works great for solos because I’m a huge Andy Timmons fan. I love that Laney tone! But we just couldn’t get anything that sounded as good and dependable as the Kemper.”

That’s interesting – you actually preferred the sound of digital, as well as the convenience...

“I must have spent $20k on amps, cases and cable. In the end, I just drove home and got my $1,500 Kemper. I plugged it into a cab, turned it on and it was like, ‘There you go!’ It just worked. Zoltan had been using his Diamond valve amps on stage for the last 15 years. During one rehearsal, he was getting frustrated with his sound and we’d already profiled his amp back when I first moved out to Vegas…

“So I said, ‘I’ve got your tones in my Kemper, give it a go!’ And he was so into it, we couldn’t get him off the guitar for 30 minutes. The next day he bought eight Kempers and changed his entire rig. That’s when I thought, ‘I guess we’re a Kemper band now!’

“What blew us both away is that it’s very player-reactive – you can take screenshots, but they will differ depending on who is plugged in. We created profiles using the exact same settings, and his had way more bottom-end. There was this inherent heaviness to his fingers that mine didn’t have – maybe I’m geared up slightly differently, for different things!”

So if he’s using Diamond profiles, which ones are you running?

“My main ones are from my original STL Tones session. Craig Daws, who played with me in Sacred Mother Tongue for a bit, is into engineering. So we booked a studio and took a bunch of heads and cabs. He had a 6505+ that was bias-modded to be hotter and heavier. I think they bias them quite cold out of the factory to maintain the tubes as long as possible, but he’d juiced this one up.

“Sure, you probably pop tubes a bit faster, but the tone is fucking great. That went into an oversized Mesa cab with three mics: a 57, a 421 and one of those pressure boundary mics for drum kits. We created a bunch of tones with that blend and I haven’t used anything else since! Nothing, to my ears, sounds better.”

Let’s go back to you landing the FFDP gig. They were midway through a European tour when you got the call...

“I had no idea this was going to happen. I was talking to Zoltan because my ex-wife wanted to go see them. I sent him a message asking if it was okay if she came down and he asked his assistant to get her sorted. And then the day after he sent me a text message asking, ‘What’s your music retention like?’ 

“I didn’t really know what he meant, so I asked him to explain and he came back with, ‘Do you think you could learn our whole set? Because we might need you!’ And I said, ‘Oh okay, no worries, send over the setlist!’ I was already a fan of the band and knew the songs anyway, even if I hadn’t worked them out by that point. But I put the phone down and it was panic stations! I didn’t sleep that night. 

“Most of their stuff is in B standard six-string tuning and I only had a seven-string with me. I had no way of playing it the way it was meant to be, so I had to transpose everything and figure it all out.”

It all happened quite fast by the sounds of it, but you managed to score a fulltime role in one of the world’s biggest modern metal bands...

“I was on a plane sat where all the flight attendants strap in for takeoff and carried on learning. Everyone else was chilling in bed and having posh first-class dinners, and I was there with my guitar and my headphones in! My first show ended up being in Hamburg.

“When you listen to a record, you can hear the parts but you might not know who’s doing what. So I got to see a couple of shows and see what each guitarist was doing. I didn’t see Jason, though – I don’t even think he knew I was there. I guess there was a lot going on and I was just staying out of it.”

That first gig must have been quite memorable...

“Yeah! We didn’t even have a proper rehearsal. It was just four guys in a room with Roland Cubes going through the songs backstage. I was sat in Zoltan’s room before the show, Ivan came over and they said, ‘Look man, we’re happy you are helping us out – we won’t be looking at you the whole time to see what could go wrong... just go out and have fun!’ 

“It went alright. I hadn’t used in-ears or played an arena full of 12,000 people before. I already knew Charlie [Engen, drums] from before because he was playing drums for Angel Vivaldi and Scale the Summit before he joined FFDP.

“18 months later, him and Zoltan were having a jam session. Zoltan likes to keep his finger on the pulse when it comes to guitar players, so he pulled up one of my videos and asked Charlie if he’d heard of me. Charlie said we were good friends and mentioned FFDP were one of my favorite bands.” 

Well, that can’t have hurt!

“Zoltan was like, ‘Really?!’ Because maybe he thought instrumental shred and massive radio success bands didn’t really cross over much. I think he was surprised by that. Maybe even back then, he was thinking about the future. He’s a very chess player-like person. A promoter once told him that he’s the only person that operates with a subs bench in mind. 

“He runs his band like a football team. He’d rather do the gig with somebody else than let fans or promoters down. We had it even recently when Ivan was unwell so we got people like Phil Labonte, Howard Jones and AJ Channer [Fire From the Gods] to cover. He’ll always have people in his back pocket in case of emergencies.”

It probably helped that you were a fan of Jason Hook’s Van Halen-esque sense of flair, too...

“That’s another reason why I really liked them! I love the big songs, but the soloing style within the context of the band always appealed to me. And you’re right, he was coming from that Van Halen and George Lynch kind of place. There was also a bit of Nuno in there too, because some of his licks were really percussive. Coming into the band, I knew his style had such an identity with them. 

“It’s still a bit weird for me listening to AfterLife, because I’m playing on it. There was a degree of imposter syndrome, because Jason was in the band for 11 years.

“I’m a guitarist in my own right but also needed to respect the sound of the band. I can’t be Jason – that would be impossible – but I wanted to wangle my own sound into what they’d done before. It would have been weird for me to come in and piss all over it, showing off with little regard for the songs.”

Anyone who has listened to your solo albums or seen your instructional content will be aware of your ferocious alternate-picking skills. What helped you get to these levels of speed?

“I think discovering the dominance in my upstroke was the thing that helped the most. The three-note-per-string stuff, like that four-note or six-note Paul Gilbert exercise, is a big challenge for all of us. He even later admitted that one of his most iconic lessons is also one of the hardest things you can do, playing three notes, changing strings with an upstroke and then coming back down again.

“I had to change it slightly to make it work. I’d go up five or six notes and then come back, instead of four. Adding in that extra note or two would allow me to have a pull-off coming back. I wouldn’t have to pick the last note before returning to the string I started on. So now I make sure there’s a pull-off or hammer-on somewhere. I do this technique where I pick two notes, then hammer-on the third, then I change strings and do the same thing again.

“That way I can go all the way up a scale shape and skip a third of the picking, allowing myself to get ready for the run on the next string every time! And if you use a bit of palm-muting, you can almost make the legato sound like picked notes… that’s another good cheat, too! It was a massive thing for my playing.” 

While we’ve got you, please tell us some more of these cheats you’ve picked up over the years!

“Sure! I couldn’t pick those Eric Johnson-style pentatonic runs for a long time. It wasn’t until I was in a Lick Library session trying to do Fixation on the Darkness by Killswitch Engage, which involved four picked notes at a time. The guys filming it were falling asleep in their chairs waiting for me to nail it. We were burning through tape, so I told them to go get some lunch while I figured it out. 

“By the time they came back, I had worked out how to do it. And that’s when I realized on even-note groupings, I have to start on an up-stroke. Obviously pentatonic runs are often two notes per string, so I tried burning through those licks starting with an up and within five minutes I was up to speed. It was a major breakthrough for me.”

Well, you can certainly nail the intensity and attack of legends like Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci and Zakk Wylde...

“Alternate picking sounds aggressive – that’s what I love about it. I knew early on that my left hand moved faster than my right. It took a while for my two hands to sync up. You need strong legato for sweeping. I do the Richie Kotzen thing where I sweep down and then use legato coming back up. That was my main takeaway from his Rock Chops DVD.

“But I’ve always loved the Gilbert, Petrucci and Wylde approach to picking. Those guys sound so aggressive and it seems to translate better for live shows. I kept on drilling and drilling to get there… it didn’t come easy!”

• For more information on the Andy James Signature Assassin, head to B.C. Rich.

B.C. Rich has teamed up with Andy James of Five Finger Death Punch fame to produce one of the most eye-catching signature guitars of the year.

We say “eye-catching” and we mean it: just get a load of that Pitchfork headstock – one wrong move and those sharp points could easily take an eye out.

That gnarly headstock design is one of the standout features of James' new electric guitar, which takes cues from B.C. Rich’s Assassin model, but otherwise recruits a low-profile C-shape satin neck and seamless “No Heel Shredzilla Neck cut” construction.

All of those additions to the custom spec sheet hope to facilitate faster playing – and muster up an especially aggressive, metal-ready vibe – with the original Assassin from 1986 instead offering a bolt-on neck and simple hockey stick-style headstock.

Another update to the Assassin template that James and the brand has introduced is the Evertune hardtail bridge – a unit that is becoming more and more common on factory guitars, and that promises to keep your guitar in tune “under any conditions”.

At its core, the Assassin (which is available in six-, seven- and eight-string variations) features a mahogany body with single-ply binding, as well as a five-piece neck composed from maple and wenge. 

It’s also worth noting that the Matte White and Matte Black versions are joined by a Trans Green option, which pairs the above specs with a flame maple top.

Elsewhere, the 14”-radius ebony fingerboard is topped with 24 Extra Jumbo frets, glow in the dark Andy James Squares inlays and a Graph Tech nut, with Luminlay side dots also making the cut.

Tones come by way of Fishman Fluence Modern humbuckers – alnico in the neck, ceramic in the bridge – which are wired to the simplest of control layouts: a three-way switch and a master volume parameter.

That James has opted for a Strat-shaped, EverTune-equipped signature with dual humbuckers and minimal controls isn’t much of a surprise, considering the FFDP member teamed up with Kiesel back in 2021 to craft an eerily similar instrument.

That guitar, however, was without that ultra-gnarly headstock, so we consider this a considerable upgrade, at least in terms of being an effective stage invader repellent.

The Andy James Assassin starts from $2,099.

Head over to B.C. Rich for more info.

Last week, B.C. Rich posted a not-so-subtle Stranger Things-related teaser, which hinted at the imminent arrival of an appropriately-themed electric guitar model.

Now, following the debut of the popular Netflix program’s fourth season, BC Rich has unveiled a grisly limited-edition Warlock model – a six-string that even featured in all its glory in the series.

Looking like something straight from the Upside Down, the B.C. Rich Warlock would no doubt have been spotted by eagle-eyed Stranger Things fans during the first episode of the show’s new season, as it took pride of place hanging on the wall of new character Eddie Munsen’s bedroom.

Eddie – who takes the opportunity during that same episode to reveal he is in fact in a band – doesn’t get round to playing the guitar in the first half of the fourth season, but shots from the show’s official trailer certainly point towards the Warlock getting some action in later episodes.

Music is, after all, key this season – no spoilers here, don’t worry – but owing to a mid-season break, we’ll have to wait until July 1 to see the B.C. Rich slay some otherworldly creatures.

As for the guitar itself, it’s said to be a replica of Eddie’s own instrument, and is true to traditional Warlock spec. Arriving in cool Liquid Black or gnarly Relic Crackle colorways, the NJ Series six-string features an alder body and bolt-on maple neck.

The ”Shredzilla Ultra Slim Contour for Speed” neck is topped with a 14”-radius ebony fingerboard, which in turn sports dot inlays and 24 extra jumbo 57110 frets.

In the hardware department, the Warlock features a Floyd Rose locking tremolo tailpiece, Floyd Rose R3 nut and BC Rich custom 18:1 tuners.

Pickup-wise, the axe comes equipped with a pair of BC Rich 86” High Gain humbuckers. These are controlled by master volume and tone controls – which don’t go up to Eleven, unfortunately – as well as a three-way selector switch.

Other neat show-specific tweaks include a neck plate adorned with the seal of the Hellfire Club – the super-cool Dungeons & Dragons squad headed up by Eddie – as well as the Netflix and Stranger Things logos embossed on the control circuit cavity cover.

The guitar is up for preorder for $899, and will start shipping in late June – just in time for the return of the show.

To find out more, head over to B.C. Rich.

B.C. Rich has announced the Chuck Schuldiner Stealth, a new electric guitar honoring the late Death guitarist.

A recreation of Schuldiner's single-pickup, neck-through Stealth guitar, the new model is available in USA- and Korean-made versions, and “proudly represents Chuck's legacy and [his] indelible mark on guitarists and the death metal genre”.

Announcing the new model on Facebook, B.C. Rich described Schuldiner as a “musical innovator”, noting how many music biographers refer to him as “the father of death metal”.

“Chuck played several B.C. Rich models throughout his groundbreaking and meaningful career,” the post reads. “In purposeful style, Chuck laid down many creative and ferocious riffs on his B.C. Rich [guitars] that launched him into metal icon status.”

Chuck Schuldiner founded Death in 1983, though the group was known as Mantas until 1984. Regarded as one of the first-ever death metal bands, Death released seven studio albums prior to Schuldiner's passing in 2001.

More recently, the band's catalog has received an extensive reissue campaign via Relapse Records. It includes the first-ever fully authorized Death tab book, which features both traditional notation and tablature for 21 of the band's classic songs.

The Chuck Schuldiner Stealth is available now for preorder, and will begin shipping in August 2021. For more information, head to B.C. Rich.

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to navigate our way to the front of a show and ogle the onstage gear, but thankfully we’ve still been able to clock a few surprise guitar choices during online performances – and indie fave Phoebe Bridgers has certainly set our six-string surprise senses a-tingling with her latest squeeze, BC Rich’s none-more-metal Warlock.

As part of Visible’s Red Rocks Unpaused series of live-streamed concerts on September 1, Bridgers pulled out the 24-fret Bronze by BC Rich model for Kyoto and ICU, two open-tuned tracks from new album, Punisher.

The performance – which has now been uploaded to YouTube by one enterprising user – is a welcome reminder that electric guitars are often a lot more versatile than their looks might suggest, as the Warlock provides some surprisingly dreamy cleans when paired with Bridgers’ shimmering chord voicings.

“I try to trick myself to write a song in an open tuning and not even worry about what the chords look like and focus on the melody instead,” Bridgers told us earlier this year. “I’ve learned so much about my favorite gear that way, as well as my favorite chords and tones.”

During the performance, Bridgers also plays her trademark Metal Flake-finished Danelectro ’56 Baritone, as well as a “totally murdered-out” Waterloo acoustic, which she received from Conor Oberst.

Co-guitarist Harrison Whitford, meanwhile, leans on a heavily modified Seafoam Green Telecaster for much of the set, and lays down a killer solo for Punisher’s epic closing track, I Know the End.

The unlikely Bridgers/BC Rich pairing brings to mind that time John Mayer dug deep into his collection to pull out a Bubblegum Pink Jackson Dinky for an Ellen performance of Still Feel Like Your Man.

What’s next? Julien Baker digging into a Dean Razorback? Bon Iver tearing up a Flying V? Taylor Swift rocking an ESP Eclipse? Make it happen. Make it all happen.

Black Sabbath’s 1985 reunion with Ozzy Osbourne at Live Aid may not have been their most memorable show. But one thing that has always stuck out from the performance is Geezer Butler’s excessively pointy, cross-adorned red B.C. Rich custom bass.

Apparently, the instrument, which Geezer recently revealed he still owns, made quite the lasting impression on him as well.

"I was recently asked about the bass played during Live Aid,” he wrote on Twitter alongside a photo of the bass.

“Yes, I still have it. It's a custom B.C. Rich, only ever played it at Live Aid. 

"I whacked my thumb on that sharp edge, and could hardly play the bloody thing, it went right into my nerve and my whole hand went numb."

You can check out a pic of the possible moment of attack above. Let that be a warning to luthiers and fans of pointy guitars and basses everywhere.

B.C. Rich recently unveiled the KKW30 Kerry King Signature guitar, and we’re happy to bring you a demo video featuring none other than King himself.

The KKW30 is a guitar more than suitable for the likes of King—a member of Slayer and a pioneering icon of speed and thrash metal—and features excellent playability, an iconic design, and an affordable price. So if you're seeking the path of the Metal Master, this is the guitar for you.

"If I had something of this quality back then, I definitely would've spent more time rehearsing than chasing chicks,” says King.

Check out the video below, and to purchase the KKW30 or find out more, click here.

The long-lost B.C. Rich Warlock with which Slash wrote many of Guns N’ Roses’ earliest hits has been discovered and placed up for auction.

The guitar has been verified by Slash and his original guitar tech, Jason Solon, as the Warlock that Slash ordered from B.C. Rich in early 1984. He played the instrument at 18 early GN’R performances around Hollywood, using it more than any other guitar he owned at the time.

The guitar is listed with Julien’s Auctions and is included in their Icons & Idols: Rock n’ Roll 2016 auction, which takes place November 4. The auction also includes property from the Estate of Frank and Gail Zappa.

The Warlock played an important role in early Guns N’ Roses history. Slash played the guitar during his brief stint with Hollywood Rose, the precursor to Guns N’ Roses formed in 1983 by Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin and guitarist Chris Weber. According to Julien’s, he used the guitar to write and perform the Guns N’ Roses classics “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” both of which are featured on the group’s 1987 debut album, Appetite for Destruction. Slash also played the guitar on the band’s original demo and on the four-song EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide, recorded in 1986.

He last played the guitar in January 1987 before storing it away. Julien’s says the guitar was acquired from Solon and its whereabouts were unknown until just recently.

The Warlock, which Slash has autographed, comes with a signed letter of authenticity from Slash and Solon, as well as the original Anvil hardcase and a timeline of performances where it was played.

Bidding starts at $30,000. The guitar is expected to sell for $60,000 to $80,000.

GOLD AWARD

Perhaps you recently read an announcement that Praxis Musical Instruments signed a worldwide licensing agreement with Hanser Music Group for the B.C. Rich brand.

As you may or may not be aware, Hanser has owned B.C. Rich since 2001, and Praxis has manufactured and distributed the Sterling by Music Man line of imported instruments since 2005. However, Praxis’s role with B.C. Rich is more independent and autonomous than their arrangement with Sterling by Music Man. As a result, Praxis has introduced an entirely new line of B.C. Rich guitars and basses for 2016. Praxis also opened a B.C. Rich USA Custom Shop, which is staffed by some of the legendary master luthiers of B.C. Rich, including Neal Moser (the designer of the legendary “Bich” model), Ron Estrada, Dave Cervantes, and master graphic artist/painter Dan Lawrence.

The B.C. Rich 2016 lineup still includes favorite classics like the Mockingbird and Warlock, plus a full line of Kerry King signature guitars and newer models like the Villain, JR V, and six- and seven-string Warbeast guitars. We took a look at the MK5 Warlock, which is sort of a “midline” model between B.C. Rich’s fancier MK11, MK9, and MK7 models and the more streamlined MK3 and MK1 models. Not to go all Goldilocks on y’all here, but many longtime B.C. Rich enthusiasts as well as newcomers will probably find B.C. Rich’s MK5 Warlock just right when it comes to quality and value.

FEATURES

With its gloss black finish and white binding surrounding the entire top, fingerboard, and headstock, the MK5 Warlock has a classy, elegant appearance that contrasts the radical curves and points of its body shape. German carving around the body’s top edges and a rosewood fretboard completely free of inlays further enhance the MK5 Warlock’s sophisticated appeal. Although the MK5 Warlock has a set-in mahogany neck, the heel is smoothly and seamlessly contoured to the mahogany body to provide the same “heel-less” feel of B.C. Rich’s beloved neck-through-body designs. The neck is also finished in gloss black and has a 24 3/4–inch scale, 24 medium jumbo frets, 13 3/4–inch radius, and a slim, shallow C-shaped profile.

All of the hardware is chrome-plated, consisting of a Tune-o-matic-style bridge with stop tailpiece, knurled dome control knobs, traditional non-locking die-cast tuners with metal buttons, and a metal jack plate. The electronics include a pair of high-output humbucking pickups of B.C. Rich’s own make with chrome-plated covers, individual volume and tone controls for each pickup, and a three-position pickup selector toggle switch.

PERFORMANCE

The MK5 Warlock essentially is a combination of the wicked body shape and neck-through-body feel of the original Warlock that Bernie Rico designed in 1981 with the classy black finish, white binding, and dual-humbucker circuit of a 1958 Les Paul. This guitar is no classic throwback however, but rather a bold refinement of those aesthetics that are equally up to the demands of today’s players.

While the body shape is undeniably radical, like B.C. Rich’s other classic designs it still makes perfect sense from an ergonomic standpoint, feeling well-balanced when played standing up, fitting comfortably onto the knew when playing while seated, and balancing perfect on its two lower edges when leaned against an amp or chair. The smooth heel is as comfortable as it gets, providing easy access all the way to the 24th fret, and the neck has an effortless, fast feel.

What really seals the deal is the MK5 Warlock’s crisp, refined tone. The pickups deliver output that’s not too hot or weak (there’s that “just right” balance again), providing aggressive attack and upper midrange snarl along with tight, refined bass that keeps even the most distortion-saturated tones sounding clear and well-defined. With clean amp settings the treble sparkles and shines without sounding thin or shrill. While its looks may say “metal,” the MK5 Warlock is really ideal for any style of music where a dual-humbucker guitar is welcome.

STREET PRICE $499.99
MANUFACTURER B.C. Rich, bcrich.com

• Although the MK5 Warlock has a set-in neck, the heel is smoothly and seamlessly contoured to the body to provide the feel and playability of a neck-through-body design.

• The pair of humbucking pickups with individual volume and tone controls provides the full range of classic humbucker tones ideal for any style of music.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The latest chapter of the B.C. Rich saga looks very promising thanks to the impressive value and quality provided by instruments like the MK5 Warlock, which should please purists and newcomers alike.

B.C. Rich has officially announced its U.S.A. B.C. Rich Custom Shop staff.

Here's the new lineup:

• Ron Estrada: Master Luthier
• David Cervantes: Master Luthier, Handmade Acoustics, CNC Bolt-On Electrics
• Neal Moser: Master Engineer, Handmade Electronics
• Dan Lawrence: Master Painter and Custom Graphics
• Joshua Munter: Parts Sourcing and Supplier
• Martin Bravo: Master Painter
• Alejandro Castro: Public Relations, Customer Service
• Dave Cohen: Managing Director
• Brian Xavier Martin: Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Artist Relations, Brand Liaison.

The U.S.A. Custom Shop is now in full operation under the auspices of Master Luthier Ron Estrada of Mammoth Guitars; it will be moving to its new, standalone facility in Fontana, California, during the second quarter of 2016.

Along with Estrada, Master Luthier David Cervantes will be adding the skills of Custom Acoustic Guitar builds, as well bringing the knowledge and expertise of CNC, allowing for premium bolt-on electrics to be produced alongside the completely handmade, handcrafted neck-through models that are the hallmark of B.C. Rich.

Longtime B.C. Rich designer Neal Moser (Master Luthier/designer/electronics genius) will handcraft the custom wiring and circuits for each build as they are commissioned.

“I am very excited to be providing all the original wiring looms for the new B.C. Rich U.S.A. Custom Shop. It’s been a long time coming” says Moser, whose involvement with B.C. Rich dates to the golden era of B.C. Rich in 1974.

For more information about the U.S.A. B.C. Rich Custom Shop staff, head here.

Be sure to check out the all-new bcrich.com, which will be launched during the 2016 Winter NAMM Show!

Speaking of which ...

Guitar World’s 2016 Winter NAMM Show Coverage

Check out the NAMM 2016 section of GuitarWorld.com to keep up with our latest gear announcements, photos and videos. You also might want to consider following Guitar World via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, because that's where most of the gear pics will be posted during show hours.

•GuitarWorld.com: NAMM Show coverage
•Twitter: NAMM Show photos and news
•Facebook: NAMM Show photos and news
•Instagram: NAMM Show photos and more
•YouTube: NAMM Show videos.

If you’ve ever wondered why you see a lot of gear introductions right around this time of year, it’s probably because we’ve all just come back from the NAMM show.

A celebration of everything gear-related, NAMM is a large convention in Anaheim, CA, where 100,000 industry folks gather to check out new gear and connect.

While the show is focused around gear, there are loads of other fun elements, including parties, dinners, concerts and of course, special events like the She Rocks Awards.

The week is spent checking out one cool piece of gear after another. Check out this gallery for some of my favorite gear picks, events and more!

The following content is related to the August 2013 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store.

The B.C. Rich Mockingbird is one of the most iconic, original and enduring electric solidbody guitar designs made by a company whose name doesn’t begin with an F or a G. Since its introduction in 1975, the Mockingbird has remained a favorite of hard-rock and metal guitarists for its high-performance design and aggressive lines.

The B.C. Rich Mockingbird STQ retains many of the original Mockingbird’s features, but it’s much more affordably priced and refined, to satisfy the needs of today’s players.

This video is related to the February 2012 issue of Guitar World. For the full text of the reviews, you can pick up the issue of newsstands now or in our online store.

In the following video, Guitar World's Paul Riario takes a look at the Steve Smyth signature model Bich from B.C. Rich, an ideal axe for technical guitarists who prize precision and music definition in a high-gain setting.