Since its arrival in 2018, John Mayer’s PRS Silver Sky signature guitar has been treated to a handful of aesthetic updates, and is now available in a range of bold and striking finishes. When paired with the PRS SE Silver Sky – which introduced four new colors – the total number of Silver Sky hues is considerable.
According to Mayer, though, there are finishes the general public has never seen before, with the Sob Rock star saying he has a secret collection of Silver Skys with colorways that would make people “flip out”.
While in conversation with Cory Wong on the funk maestro’s Wong Notes podcast, the pair discussed their respective signature models – a conversation that unearthed the fact that Mayer wanted to call his latest Roxy Pink Silver Sky something else.
“I’ve got a couple of Silver Skys at home that, if people were to see the color, they would flip out,” said Mayer. “I’ve got the Roxy Pink one. The color… I kept wanting to call it Eraser Pink, but everyone else at PRS just did not like Eraser Pink.”
The Eraser Pink tag would have certainly introduced a particular style to the range and, in a stroke of classic Mayer marketing genius, would have been partnered with a similarly stationery-themed Pencil Yellow iteration.
“I thought, ‘What if you made this, and you made Pencil Yellow?’” Mayer continued. “For 20 minutes, it was like, Eraser Pink and Pencil Yellow, that would be sold in a giant pencil case.”
If you need help visualizing what that would have look like, Chibson shared a classically Chibson-ified image of the two "guitars" on Instagram.
As for the colors that would make us “flip out”, Mayer remained tight-lipped, though reiterated his long-held stance that vintage-style finishes, such as sunburst, would never make their way on to the Silver Sky, which instead would be reserved for Tesla-esque colors.
“It takes younger people to make a guitar a little more like the other things we own,” he said. “Tesla. Apple. Everything else in our life has this smoothness to it – has this design language to it. We’re going, ‘Knock, knock, guitar. Come on. You’re still in sunburst and tortoiseshell.’”
Whether we actually see the Pencil Yellow version in the flesh remains to be seen, though perhaps the lack of an Eraser Pink counterpart would take the sting out of it. Whatever the case, it sounds almost certain there are more PRS Silver Sky finishes on the way.
There will be a part two of Wong and Mayer’s chat, which promises a whole lot more guitar playing, so head over to Cory Wong’s Instagram to stay up to date.
