For longtime Ibanez fan (and current Guitar World cover star) Joe Satriani, sketching and drawing have always been as much of a creative outlet as his game-changing, guitar-driven rock music.
These two different hemispheres of his artistry converge beautifully in Ibanez’s new, limited 25th anniversary edition of Joe’s iconic signature JS guitar, the JS25ART. The body of each guitar bears a full color illustration, hand drawn by Satriani himself.
Each one is different and there are only 50 of them, 25 of which are slated for sale in the U.S. Offering a unique opportunity to be a guitar collector and art collector all in one, this very special JS edition commemorates the birth of Satriani’s Ibanez signature model 25 years ago.
“Ibanez approached me and asked if I’d do something special for the 25th anniversary,” Satriani recalls.
“They didn’t know what I was going to do, but I decided to illustrate some guitars myself. The idea took a lot of setup, because I had to figure out, ‘Am I going to paint them or use pens? What would the process be? Could I erase?’ So I wound up using these color pens. I spent about a week down in L.A. late in 2014 doing the illustrations and it was a lot of fun. But it was intense. With the pens, you can’t really put color on color. Nor can you erase. Some of the ones I did are more detailed; others are just line drawings. They’re all signed.”
Technically speaking, the JS25ART embodies all the design refinements distilled over Satriani’s quarter century of collaboration with Ibanez. This includes a maple, JS Prestige neck with hand-rolled fret edges, Satriani’s signature DiMarzio pickups (the Satch Track and Mo’ Joe), a hi-pass filter on the volume pot, a coil tap on the tone pot and a low-profile Edge tremolo bridge.
Longtime fans of Satriani’s visual art many recognize some of the bizarre faces and characters depicted on some of the guitars. Many of these characters are soon to come to life in an animated sci-series, tentatively titled Crystal Planet, that Satch is working on with fretless guitarist and digital animator Ned Evett.
Below, be sure to check out our comprehensive photo gallery of all of Ibanez's current signature Satch guitars, including electrics and acoustics!
For more about Satch's signature Ibanez electric guitars, head here. For more about his acoustic models, head here. For more about Ibanez Guitars, visit ibanez.co.jp.
In a career that spans five decades, Alan di Perna has written for pretty much every magazine in the world with the word “guitar” in its title, as well as other prestigious outlets such as Rolling Stone, Billboard, Creem, Player, Classic Rock, Musician, Future Music, Keyboard, grammy.com and reverb.com. He is author of Guitar Masters: Intimate Portraits, Green Day: The Ultimate Unauthorized History and co-author of Play It Loud: An Epic History of the Sound Style and Revolution of the Electric Guitar. The latter became the inspiration for the Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exhibition “Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock and Roll.” As a professional guitarist/keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist, Alan has worked with recording artists Brianna Lea Pruett, Fawn Wood, Brenda McMorrow, Sat Kartar and Shox Lumania.
