Greg Freeman’s favourite guitar was in a house fire: “it was burned to a crisp”
While the issue of artificially ageing a guitar is one that still bitterly divides guitar players, even the most dedicated home-relicer would probably draw the line at throwing a guitar on the fire to give it an authentically battered patina.
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Thankfully for rising indie-rock guitarist Greg Freeman, that work had inadvertently been done for him by the time he came to snag his favourite Gibson SG off Craigslist for a bargain price – the guitar had been “burned to a crisp” in a house fire, and it still wears the scars today.
“My friend Garrett, who plays bass in my band, found it on Craigslist in Maine for like, $400 or something,” he told us in the latest episode of My Guitars & Me. “It was in a house fire: that’s why it looks way older than it is, I guess. It kind of immediately relic’d the whole thing. The pickguard is literally melted, and that wear looks about 70 years old.
Despite its heavy battle scars, the guitar has become Freeman’s number one as he wrote and recorded sensational new album, All Set The Bone. “It plays really great and has big thick neck and just feels like a proper SG,” he explains. “Some of them don’t really feel right to me, but this one is just great.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Freeman shares his love of an 80s Tokai Breezysound that he thinks is as good as any Fender equivalent, and also explains why he stopped buying and using vintage guitars: “I just play too hard to be able to play a vintage Mustang or something,” he explains. “Like it’s just not going to be in tune. So, I think that’s why I like guitars from the 90s and 2000s. It’s has the age, but can kind of put up with a lot.”
Get up close and personal with the guitars that have guided the musical journey of some of the guitar world’s biggest names by watching every episode of the Guitar.com Originals series, My Guitars & Me.
Greg Freeman’s new album, All Set The Bone, is out now.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
