“It’s like having a sports car, and you can’t drive it!”: Jared James Nichols on guitar collectors that never play their instruments
Pay and Display is for parking, not guitars. For years, artists from across the board have preached this sentiment, from Slash criticising uber-expensive display-only axes to John McLaughlin insisting that an unplayed guitar will get “sick” like a malnourished human being. Now, Jared James Nichols has shared his own thoughts on leaving a pricy ‘collectors’ guitar untouched.
In a new interview, Nichols inspects a gorgeous vintage Les Paul to Solar Guitars’ owner Ola Englund. While discussing the axe, Englund poses Nichols with the ultimate dilemma: is it safe to bring a flashy, $100,000 guitar out on tour? You’ll probably lose your warranty and earn a few scratches sure. But a few dings are far better than the alternative of leaving it hanging on a wall.
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“You would see this hanging at the guitar store, never to be played again, or in someone’s collection…” he says. “[Collectors will say], ‘This is a ‘59 Les Paul. Oh, don’t touch it!! Don’t even look at it!!’ You’re a dentist and your value is based on a guitar that is worth something.”
He adds that real guitar pros know that a good guitar shouldn’t be left to gather dust. In fact, he even believes that the biggest collectors often don’t even know how to tackle a riff. “90% of these vintage guys… you hear them play it and you go, ‘Dude you can’t even play the guitar…’” he sighs.
“It’s like having a sports car, and you can’t drive it!” he cries.
Often, this brand of guitar owner will just be someone with more money than sense. Nichols emphasises that the only thing that matters to this brand of collector is the ego-boost of asking strangers “do you know how much this is worth?”
“After you see the same person do this over and over, you’re like, ‘I’m not into it, bro’,” he continues. “But is it responsible to bring this [guitar he is holding] on the road, spill beer on it, sweat all over it and scratch it? No, but you know what? It was made for that.”
Jared James Nichols is currently on a US tour up until December. For more information, head to his website.
The post “It’s like having a sports car, and you can’t drive it!”: Jared James Nichols on guitar collectors that never play their instruments appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
