Mary Kay at Play Pink Again
18 pro guitarists who play cheap guitars
Practice yous need an expensive electrical guitar to write and perform cracking music? Now, to answer this question, ideally nosotros would gather a Alive Aid'south worth of musicians in an shipping hanger, position an over-sized condenser mic in the middle of them, and take them shout "No!" at the peak of their lungs.
Merely this is not an platonic world, then here'due south a list of very cool players – very dissimilar players – who accept chosen something odd, something absurd, just ultimately something cheap as the right tool to get the task washed.
There is an inherent difficulty in defining what counts as cheap. When any of these players pick up a one time-forgotten slice of gear – say an onetime itemize/department store guitar similar a Sears Silvertone – and then consecrate it on tape with the tune of the year, then naturally people want those guitars, and because no one's making them any more the price rises. That'southward just a paradox of retail economics that we're going to have to live with here.
But what these guitars have in mutual is that they were built primarily with upkeep in listen. Many had been forgotten for years, and by the grace of tonehound curiosity, they accept been ferreted out of obscurity to soundtrack our lives.
The thing is: here are the likes of Derek Trucks, the globe's most-gifted slide player, playing a chipboard Silvertone, Van Halen reliving his early on teens with a Teisco, and Prince, the Imperial One himself, whose number i guitar was a Japanese Tele copy, a left-of-center selection for 1 of the artists of the mod era.
Well, that's every bit good a place to outset as whatsoever...
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1. Prince
Guitar: Hohner Madcat Telecaster
Stories abound that His Regal Badness bought the Madcat for 30 bucks from the back of someone's auto. Or from a Minneapolis guitar store (more plausible?). Either way, it wasn't expensive and its build is worthy of note.
Fabricated in Japan during the '70s under Moridaira'due south H.Southward. Anderson brand, who later sold it to Hohner, the Madcat was designed by Hidesato Shiino and has an ash body topped with figured maple with a walnut centre strip. Information technology has 2 Strat-style single coils, and a six-saddle hardtail span. Oh, and a leopard print pickguard and jack plate that Prince accessorized with a matching strap.
Hohner has reissued it as The Prinz. Bill Lawrence made a version. And H.S. Anderson has at present reacquired the design and is selling deluxe catamenia-correct Madcats with upgraded pickups and Gotoh hardware. In the spirit of cheapness, Harley Benton does a version for under $200.
2. Brian May
Guitar: The Crimson Special
You can't get much cheaper than constructing your own guitar with your dad from materials that were lying around the firm. We'd hesitate to call the Red Special cheap, though. Information technology's priceless, and there's a difference.
- Check out our comprehensive guide to achieving the Queen icon'southward tone
In an interview with Total Guitar, Brian May said that the inspiration behind the guitar was his vocalisation. "I wanted it to have the smooth tones of a vocalist, but as well the 'consonants', sort of the definition which gives you lot the words when you're singing." Crucially, May'southward homemade design was alive and would feedback a la Pete Townshend, opening a cornucopia of musical possibilities that May would exploit fully with Queen.
3. Eddie Van Halen
Guitar: Teisco ET-440, Teisco Spectrum 5
Eddie Van Halen has some history with upkeep Teisco guitars – technically Teisco Del Ray guitars, as they were rebranded afterward '64, but you get the drift. EVH turned upwardly with a Spectrum 5 in the video for twangin' Hagar-era hit Finish What You Started, and was fifty-fifty photographed on the cover of Guitar Earth with one.
Maybe it was nostalgia. His starting time guitar was Teisco ET-440 that he picked up for 70 bucks once he decided to swap drums for guitar with his brother, Alex, which is not really that relevant as the four-pickup oddity was his tool to copy his favorite licks, not write Hot for Teacher. But yet, you lot never forget your starting time love.
4. Billie Joe Armstrong
Guitar: Fernandes Due south-style
Billie Joe Armstrong is like any number of punks who were given a cheap-o Superstrat as a child and and then radicalized it through adulthood, pummeling it mercilessly and ultimately modifying information technology with a proper humbucker and making information technology your number one.
The Dark-green Day frontman'due south Fernandes, aka Blue, is stickered, one-half-trashed, with millions of road miles on the clock, and yet somehow it is perfect for Armstrong'south stadium-friendly punk sound, and the Seymour Duncan JB humbucker is a judicious upgrade with enough of snarling mids.
v. Derek Trucks
Guitar: 1964 Silvertone Tuxedo
Derek Trucks says he got his Silvertone Tuxedo for possibly 500 bucks, which means information technology is not cheap per se, but for a mid-'60s instrument that's in near-mint condition, stock except for Gibson tuners that were fitted earlier Trucks got information technology, that is cheap in anybody's book.
Trucks got information technology from Ed Seelig at Argent Strings Music and Repair in St. Louis, Missouri, and capos it at the fifth fret. "It'south probably plywood," he says. "Information technology'southward non one of the finer instruments but I beloved it; it's got a personality. It's a great-sounding guitar, a slide machine."
6. Robby Krieger
Guitar: Kay Guitars
Robby Krieger has forever been associated with the Gibson SG but for the past five years, whenever he has needed something for a slide part, he has been using his friend and collaborator Arthur Barrow's Kay guitar.
How would you draw it, Robby? "It's old and cheap" he says, "only for some reason it sounds good on the slide." Hear information technology on Krieger's latest, The Ritual Begins at Sundown. Kay guitars have always been affordable, and the company has made instruments for retail visitor brands such as Sears' Silvertone and Montgomery Ward's Airline.
7. Kirk Hammett
Guitar: Fernandes 'Edna' Strat copy
While Metallica's lightning-fingered atomic number 82 guitarist is now most associated with arguably the nearly famous guitar in the world, Greeny, the '59 Les Paul in one case owned by two sadly departed blues-rock legends, Peter Light-green and Gary Moore, information technology was mutual in the early '80s to come across him break out one of his Fernandes S-styles, the almost famous of which was nicknamed 'Edna.'
As he explained to Guitar World back in 2016, when he went to record Ride the Lightning, he only had three guitars – a red Flying 5 with a white pickguard, a red Fernandes and Edna. Hard to imagine, but Metallica were still cloak-and-dagger so, and equipped (surely modded) with EMG single coils and a double-locking vibrato, Hammett'south FST-135 represented fantabulous value for the jobbing hesher.
8. St. Vincent
Guitar: 1967 Harmony Bobkat
Before Ernie Ball Music Man was defenestrating the drawing lath for St. Vincent's groundbreaking signature model, she was using what was ever to hand that sounded good. There were various Teles, a Thurston Moore signature Jazzmaster, just most notably there was a 1967 Harmony Bobkat, complete with those ever-and so microphonic gilt-foil pickups, and a Silvertone 1488.
She cites their audio and a surprisingly stable vibrato equally key selling points, but besides the fact they they are lightweight, which takes u.s.a. back to her Ernie Ball Music Human being signature model, a guitar that's spec'd for a smaller frame and challenges the idea that we demand a slab of mahogany and maple to make a super-sustaining electric guitar. Oh, and the tone on that Bobkat? Exquisite. Just then again, information technology's the role player.
ix. Joe Trohman
Guitar: Squier Joe Trohman Signature Telecaster
Now, we all know the music business organization can be a fickle brute, and artist remuneration is frankly a disgrace, only there's no mode that Fall Out Boy'due south Joe Trohman tin can't afford a more expensive guitar than his own Squier Signature Tele – a guitar that he sure got gratis.
But it speaks to the playability, build quality and tone of Squier instruments these days that Fender's entry-level inferior brand is good enough for the road. It besides is very Trohman. He might have people lining up exterior his hotel whenever Fox tour, but he'south got a blue-collar working musician thing going on, and information technology's an example to us all when we are fussing over getting "a improve guitar." Perhaps the one nosotros tin can afford correct now is proficient enough.
x. Mike Rutherford
Guitar: Squier Bullet Stratocaster
Though partial to Eric Clapton Strats, Genesis axeman Mike Rutherford unexpectedly began using the cheapest Fender-affiliated Stratocasters you lot tin buy, Squier Bullets, for the prog icons' 2022 The Last Domino? tour.
Stuck in Cape Town, South Africa at the onset of the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2022 without any of his usual gear, Rutherford managed to snag a couple Squier Bullets from a local music store, and rapidly fell in beloved, playing them through a Blackstar Fly3 mini amp to practice and relearn Genesis tunes.
With fewer modifications from his tech than you might imagine, Rutherford went on to accept several Bullet Strats on the road with Genesis, using them for Mama and No Son of Mine.
11. Laura-Mary Carter
Guitar: Teisco (model unknown)
Laura-Mary Carter calls her Teisco her "trash guitar." She is unsure of the exact model, only that it's from the '60s. But she's as well more than aware of how important it is to her sound and her writing. She wrote An Creature every bit presently as she picked up the guitar.
It's one of Blood Carmine Shoes' near popular songs, and it just wouldn't work on her Tele or SG. "If anything happens to this guitar I merely won't be able to play that song," she says. "It'southward got incredible low-terminate. It doesn't sound like anything else. It's completely trash but I love it so much."
12. Beck
Guitars: Harmony Silverton Newport H42, Silvertone 1448
If you are looking to recreate the lo-fi slacker tones of the pope of alt-stone, Mr. Beck Hansen, have a dig down into the back of the sofa. You might just discover enough spare modify to beget a Silvertone 1448.
At present, it'due south nothing fancy. Plucked from the Sears catalog in one case upon a fourth dimension, but now passed downwards through generations via Reverb, eBay and garage sales across the land, this particle-board oddity just toll Beck some threescore bucks or so, but listen to the tone he gets. It'll surely have a big old neck like St. Vincent and Derek Trucks' Silvertone, but when information technology sounds that good, who'southward lament? Just put it through an old tube combo amp, employ a slide and be talented.
13. Jack White
Guitars: 1964 "JB Hutto" Res-O-Glass Airline, Kay K6533 Value Leader
The affair about Jack White's penchant for pawnshop is that as soon as he picks it up and electrifies information technology with whatsoever voodoo mojo is coming through his fingertips, well, that cheapo 6-cord becomes one of the most sought-afterwards guitars on the market. It doesn't matter what the build is.
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White doesn't always use curios. He plays Gretsch. He plays Fender. He plays Gibson. But when the Knuckles of Junk gets his hands on an Airline back or a mitt-me-down Kay arch-top, some magic is nearly to happen and you lot'd all-time pay attention. Who else would choice up a Kay K6533 and write arguably the riff of the Noughties?
14. Dan Auerbach
Guitars: Höfner 176 Galaxie, Harmony Stratatone, Ibanez SG lawsuit era, Teisco Del Rey
No list like this could be complete without the connoisseur of the catalog, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. A rummage through Auerbach'southward guitar drove might find a cornucopia of Custom Kraft hollowbodies and other OOP oddities from the likes of Höfner, Teisco, Harmony and Silvertone in amongst the Gretsches and Guilds.
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He has too grappled with that kissing cousin of the Danelectro, the Comet Hornet, which was designed by Vincent Bell who played baritone guitar on the Twin Peaks soundtrack, and on the most recent Black Keys album, Auerbach played his lawsuit-era Ibanez SG and a Teisco Del Ray four that one time belonged to Hound Domestic dog Taylor.
15. Angel Olsen
Guitars: 1957 Silvertone 1369, Silvertone U1
While we would associate Angel Olsen with her Mozart-esque employ of reverb and the Gibson S-one, with its triple single-gyre format and Flight V headstock on a double-cut making it a real curio, she has been known to break out the Silvertones on occasion. She played a U1 at Pitchfork Festival in 2017, and uses the 1369 Thin Twin.
Likewise known as the Thin Twin because of its dual bract single-whorl setup, this is Silvertone pattern at its most stately. While near of these Jimmy Reed-endorsed models have a white headstock facing, information technology was updated for Leap/Summertime 1957 with a black headstock and a new model number. Original catalog cost: $104.95 cash. If you see 1 in a thrift store, buy it. In pristine condition they'll fetch a grand or more.
xvi-eighteen. Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon
Guitars: Fernandes FST Strat copy, Fernandes Native Pro, Hopf Telstar Standard, Musima Eterna
Because of the many alternate tunings they used on a song-to-vocal basis, Sonic Youth needed guitars and lots of them, so they were not fix up to tour without loading some cheaper guitars onto the gunkhole.
That's why the gear theft of '99 was so debilitating. And so much was lost. That'south partly why Jazzmasters and Mustangs entered the picture; they were cheap. Of form, as with the vintage Silvertones and pawnshop Harmony holdovers, success inflates the prices and the now ubiquitous presence of the Fender showtime is in no modest office down to Sonic Youth'south influence on the wider alt-rock civilization.
Some of the almost notable budget-axial guitars that saw action included Lee Ranaldo's pink Fernandes Strat copy, the East German Musima Eterna that Moore and Gordon both played. We've also seen Moore play a Silvertone post-Sonic Youth. Simply there is no band on this list who exemplifies the ideal of using affordable guitars for artistic try more Sonic Youth.
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Source: https://www.guitarworld.com/features/pro-guitar-players-who-play-cheap-guitars
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