“He goes, ‘Well, I didn’t realise you were gonna sweat on my guitar’”: Jared James Nichols thinks people have “lost the plot” over vintage guitars
Jared James Nichols reckons people have “lost the plot” when it comes to vintage guitars.
Well acquainted with vintage Les Pauls himself, the blues-rock ace recalls a moment with a fan who handed him a prized ’59 Les Paul to play onstage – only to panic when the realities of live performance, and a little sweat, set in.
Speaking to MusicRadar, Nichols says his relationship with vintage instruments is rooted in sound and feel rather than rarity or resale value, a mindset he feels is increasingly at odds with modern collector culture.
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“This is almost clickbaity but it’s like a lot of people lost the plot with the vintage guitar thing,” he says. “It went [away] from being a tribute to the music, and an honour to the music, and the sounds that you love, and the sounds that are timeless in your life. Like, literally, when I pick up Ol’ Red, or Dorothy, or any of these guitars, and I plug them in, I go, ‘Oh my gosh! That’s the sound’… It fills my heart but it is also inspiring.”
“But I think a lot of people started to say to themselves, ‘Well, do you know how much this one’s worth? Do you know how rare this is?’ Then it almost got like trading cards, or coins, where it didn’t really matter about the sound. It was, ‘Oh, that one, someone broke the headstock…’ To me, ‘Okay! Awesome, they broke the headstock? Let me play it. What does it sound like?’”
“Everything I own is a beater, and I know that sounds funny,” Nichols adds. “Right now, I’m in an old Suburban. I have an old [Chevrolet] Chevelle, and all of these things that I own, the guitars – everything – they have a story way before me. And you can see that, and they’re weathered, and they’re honest… I just think all my stuff, it has a story. And Dorothy? Forget about it, that’s the vibiest guitar I’ve ever come across.”
That mindset, however, doesn’t always line up with the way some collectors approach vintage gear – something Nichols learned the hard way after one fan brought a late-’50s Les Paul for him to play live.
“I was in Florida, and a guy had one, and he wanted me to play it for a song, and he was emailing us, emailing us, and he wanted me to play it,” he recalls. “Totally cool! They go to hand me the guitar, and he looks at me and goes. ‘No rings!’ I’m wearing a ring.”
“He’s like, ‘Don’t wear a ring when you play my guitar.’ And I’m literally about to take it onstage, and I look at him, and go like this [shakes head], ‘Oh no, I can’t. We’re not having this conversation right now.’ [Laughs]”
Although the performance itself went smoothly, things took a turn afterwards.
“I play the guitar, and man, like you know, when I’m onstage, I’m kind of a sweaty beast,” says Nichols. “I’m doing my thing. I don’t ever, ever beat up guitars. I respect them, and I love them – and especially a guitar like that. I play it, and I just have a little bit of sweat. I finish the song, and the guy is losing it! Because there’s now sweat on the top of his ’59 Les Paul.”
“Afterwards, he’s over there and he’s wiping it down and everything, and I went, ‘Are you all good?’ And he goes, ‘Well, I didn’t realise you were gonna sweat on my guitar.’ And I just said to him straight up, ‘Man, what do you think this is? You want to get pictures of me playing your guitar to tell your friends or whoever, and then I sweat on your guitar because I’m literally in a performance?’ So, all I’m saying, is just people lost the plot a little bit.”
The experience has since changed how he approaches similar requests.
“I don’t really feel comfortable playing people’s guitars, anymore, unless they’re friends, like Joe [Bonamassa] or whoever, because it’s a little bit… it just gets a little weird with me now,” he says.
Despite the frustration, Nichols is clear that his issue isn’t with the instruments themselves – vintage or otherwise – but how they’re treated.
“These things were meant to be used,” he says. “And I believe that no matter how expensive they get – I get it, it’s collecting – I just love to use them as intended, and that isn’t an abuse thing, or whatever, it’s just to hear those guitars and a loud amp going for it, it’s beautiful, and when I think about Dorothy, or Old Red, or any of these guitars, I go, ‘That’s what I’m into it for.’”
Jared Nichols’ new album Louder Than Fate arrives on 6 June. Check out his latest single below.
The post “He goes, ‘Well, I didn’t realise you were gonna sweat on my guitar’”: Jared James Nichols thinks people have “lost the plot” over vintage guitars appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
