“The way my guitar looks with the circles and squares – I was trying to find my own pattern”: How Jerry Cantrell was inspired by Eddie Van Halen to create his own legendary modded guitar
The G&L Rampage guitar has become synonymous with Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell, and he pretty much intended for that to be the case.
Cantrell’s Rampage is known for its unique look featuring a pattern of circles and squares, and has also been heavily modded by Cantrell over the years. Much like Eddie Van Halen with his Frankenstein guitar, Cantrell wanted to find “his own pattern”, and have something that could be associated with him.
READ MORE: Eddie Van Halen once gifted Alice In Chains’ Jerry Cantrell so much gear it filled up his manager’s garage: “I haven’t been able to park my car for months!”
Speaking to Guitar World in its new print issue, Cantrell explains, “Van Halen is one of my favourite bands, and Eddie was just a fucking alien. I was like, ‘How the fuck does this guy make his guitar sound like this?’ It was inspiring on many levels, and he was also into tinkering.
“His guitar is called Frankenstein for a reason! The artwork – the striped pattern – was a direct influence on me and the way my guitar looks with the circles and squares. I was trying to find my own pattern.”
As for the other changes he made to his G&L, Cantrell goes on to share, “The strings always came off the Kahler because it was top-mounted. I felt like it needed a bit more tension, so I counter-sunk the Kahler down into the body a little, which added a bit more tension at the rolling bar. It came with a shitty locking mechanism where the screws were made out of tin foil or something.
“Every time I changed the strings, I was replacing nuts because you’d strip them. So I put a Floyd Rose nut up top as that’s what Eddie had and counter-sunk the Kahler. I added a Seymour Duncan JB as my main pickup,” he says.
Asked how his G&L impacts the way he plays, Cantrell explains: “To some degree, you’re a mechanic. You use whatever tool you need for the job. Even if the G&L is my main guitar and is gonna be on most of the stuff and the one I feel most comfortable with, if I’m writing a song that sounds better on a Tele or a Strat or a V, I’m gonna use that. But then there’s the one you’re kinda known for. Angus [Young] plays a Gibson SG or Eddie’s got his guitar. The G&L is mine. It’s the one that felt right.”
The post “The way my guitar looks with the circles and squares – I was trying to find my own pattern”: How Jerry Cantrell was inspired by Eddie Van Halen to create his own legendary modded guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
