“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.”
Whether you know it or not, as a guitarist, subconsciously or consciously, inlays affect you since they're bothersome
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.
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