John Mayer isn’t just a guitar player. Nor is he just a singer, or a songwriter. As he explains in an exclusive new interview with Guitar World, he’s also crazy about product design. The time he’s spent building and refining his signature guitar, the PRS Silver Sky, is testament to that fact.
“It’s probably my favorite thing next to making music,” Mayer tells us. “And when I say next to, I don’t mean below it. I mean parallel with it.”
That’s why the subject we’re sitting down with Mayer to talk about is particularly significant. Today, PRS and John Mayer have announced a milestone collaboration with Land Rover, resulting in a run of US and SE Silver Sky models with Defender finishes never before seen on guitars.
It’s a big deal for Mayer, who's an avid collector of Defenders. But for those who don’t have a garage filled with luxury 4x4s, or any interest in Land Rover at all, there’s a more universal talking point that will make you sit up and pay attention.
Besides those fresh new colorways, the collection introduces the first Silver Sky to come factory-fitted with a black pickguard. It might not be the place fans were expecting it to pop up, but it finally brings one of the most requested Silver Sky features to the masses.
Mayer has long spoken about his desire to elevate electric guitar design. He’s been influenced by movements outside of the music world, looking to lifestyle brands such as Tesla, Apple and Leica as inspiration for the Silver Sky.
It’s unconventional thinking for a guitar, resulting in a signature platform that has led by example when it comes to keeping modern guitar aesthetics fresh. That’s always been the goal.
“I knew from the very beginning of the Silver Sky launch that I wanted to have a new relationship with colors when it came to the guitar,” Mayer dissects. “I wanted to elevate the sense of what colors are on the guitars.
“Color communicates so much. It’s the same way, if you're at a restaurant, fonts on a menu can communicate things. When you see that Rolex Green, it's a hex code.”
This Land Rover link-up feels like a full circle moment, then. It has allowed Mayer to geek out about a brand he loves, while flexing his passion for product design and trying to keep the guitar landscape fresh.
“I thought, ‘This is the perfect opportunity to legitimize this concept that I’ve had for so long,’” Mayer explains of the collab. “Instead of pantone-matching someone else’s colors, we got to go to the brand and get involved in the heritage of these colors and tell a deeper story.
“We were given the actual paint samples from Defender, and the paint codes. Most people don’t have those paint codes. We were entrusted with them.”
Trust is at the heart of this partnership, and that’s not lost on Mayer.
“We’re using Land Rover paint. That’s the legitimacy that I feel like is a dream come true. It’s just trust. Trust that, when I create the Silver Sky in these colors, I’m going to be an extension of the Defender story.
“It’s been a dream of mine for a long time to align with a brand that’s known so well for its colors and adapt those colors so that they live on the Silver Sky,” Mayer says. “I’m a huge fan of Defenders and a collector of Defenders. This is marrying two things I love.”
Of course, car colors and guitars have always been intertwined. In the ’50s and ’60s, Gibson and Fender used custom car colors for their builds. Dakota Red. Lake Placid Blue. Candy Apple Red. The list goes on.
But this puts a different spin on the car color theme. For a start, no-one’s used actual Defender paint before. Plus, Defenders of this style were made no earlier than the 1980s. It’s a more contemporary – and, yes, more exclusive – approach that’s in keeping with the Silver Sky’s ethos on color.
And this new collection is all about color. Keeping the same specs as regular Silver Skys, the US model gets heritage colors no longer offered on the 4x4: Arles Blue, Willow Green, Portofino Red and Sandglow Yellow, with color-matched headstocks to boot.
Meanwhile, the SE gets contemporary finishes Petra Copper, Sedona Red, Carpathian Grey, and Woolstone Green. The SE models also get the honor of bringing that black pickguard to the lineup.
It’s one of the most anticipated new features for the Silver Sky. Many fans have taken it upon themselves to make similar mods with off-label parts in the past. Now PRS is leaning into it. And Mayer is giving back to the SE in the process.
“It’s almost like the first appearance of Wolverine. Everyone’s waiting for it,” Mayer acknowledges. “I think it’s interesting that it makes its appearance on the SE line as opposed to just having it trickle down from the Core line.
“I thought it was nice to give something to the SE. When I was growing up, the more accessible guitar got punished for being more accessible. I learned a lot from the SE.
“I originally had the idea like, ‘Oh, you tier it.’ Then guitar lovers of the world spoke to me. I learned that some people are going to have an SE forever. It doesn’t have to be a consolation and someday you’ll work your way up. That’s when I thought, ‘There should be a little bit to separate the lines.’”
Players have been waiting for this one since the Silver Sky first landed. To have it appear in a Land Rover collaboration might seem odd, but it all fits Mayer’s vision for his signature guitar. This is no ‘black pickguard Silver Sky’ for the sake of it. The Defender drop felt natural.
Mayer explains, “The US core model has a white pickguard, because the wagon version of the Defenders from the 1990s had a white top. The colorway on the modern edition of the Defender has a lot of black accents, which is how we arrived at a black pickguard on the SE.
“If the SE was grabbing from modern colors, then black is the roof and hood color of a new Defender.”
Granted, a formal collaboration with an actual car brand might seem indulgent. Mayer is certainly no stranger to luxury link-ups, having worked in the past with premium Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet.
But Mayer maintains that, despite the fact this limited-edition drop has one eye on attracting collectors as well as players, it never loses sight of what’s at the center of the partnership: his signature guitar.
“The greatest compliment on the instrument side of my life is when somebody says, ‘If he put his name on it, you know it’s right,’” Mayer stresses. “That means everything to me. I don’t want to break that chain. But in the meantime, you can play with the colors and play with the story it can tell.”
This whole venture goes back to Mayer’s obsession with design and color. This is a man who has looked to fashion and cosmetics as inspiration for his guitars. The Faded Black Tee Silver Sky was color-matched to a T-shirt he likes. Moc Sand came from a pair of shoes.
“If you like one of the colors, you’re not going to get weighed down by branding,” Mayer says of this new drop. “I made sure the whole time, and so did Land Rover, that this is not a guitar feeling like it has four wheels.
“It’s not meant to combine the design DNA of a Defender and a Silver Sky. It’s telling a color story, and that’s what I really love. That’s why I think it should be known as the Defender Color Collection.”
Only 500 of each of the US Silver Sky models will be made. The SE variants won't be limited editions, per se, but will only be available until mid-year 2027.
For more information, head over to PRS Guitars.
More from John Mayer’s interview with Guitar World will be published in the coming weeks.
