Watch Vivian Campbell Jam ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses” on a Couch in Brooklyn
The Def Leppard guitarist pays a visit to Mike Squires’ ‘Couch Riffs’ series.
Guitar World recently introduced readers to Mike Squires, a New York-based musician who, among other projects, plays guitar in Duff McKagan’s Loaded. When he’s not doing that, he still likes to grab an instrument and jam—and the place he most likes to do it is the couch in his Brooklyn apartment. Over the past several months, he’s also invited other musicians, from Testament’s Alex Skolnick to half of Buckcherry to McKagan himself—to come and play along with him.
Most recently, he put Def Leppard’s Vivian Campbell in the hot seat, and together they ran through ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses,” with Campbell on guitar and vocals and Squires holding down the bottom end. You can check out the performance in the video above.
In addition to the jam session, Campbell and Squires talked gear—including the heavily modified Les Paul Deluxe Campbell acquired when he was 15 and has played with every band he’s been in since, including Sweet Savage, Dio and Def Leppard, as well as here on Squires’ couch.
“There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears in this fretboard,” Campbell says of the guitar.
“I wanna play it so bad,” comments Squires.
For more couch riffs, head here or go to CouchRiffs.com, or check out the podcast.
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Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.