Paul McCartney reveals his teenage guitar amp in studio tour

Paul McCartney’s 1997 album, Flaming Pie, has just received the deluxe reissue treatment, and among the gems included with the new edition is an hour-long studio tour, in which Macca shows you round his home studio – and some very important gear.

Most notable among his collection is his very first guitar amp, the Elpico A55.

“This is my very first amp I ever had when I was 14, it was called an Elpico,” he says at 19:31 in the video below. “As you can see it is very ’50s – the design looks like a piece of ’50s furniture.

“Instead of putting guitars into it, it says Mic1, Mic2, Gramophone – anything but guitars, really.”

As a result, the amp produces a fuzzy tonality when used with electric guitars, which is best heard on The Kinks’ You Really Got Me – although Dave Davies cut his amp’s speaker with a razor blade for extra distortion.

The studio tour also showcases McCartney soloing on his custom Ernie Ball Music Man Silhouette models, which were equipped with custom pickups and produced for Macca and fellow guitarist Robbie McIntosh.

During a recent interview, McCartney revealed how Jimi Hendrix inspired him to buy his favorite electric guitar.

The Super Deluxe edition of Flaming Pie is out now in a number of physical formats.