Wes Borland accidentally got a left-handed Jackson guitar by mistake… and it turned into his signature model: “Oh, it’s not reverse headstock. It’s left-handed”
Most signature guitars begin with years of careful planning. Wes Borland’s, however, started with an accidental left-handed guitar.
In a new interview with Gear4Music Guitars, the Limp Bizkit guitarist reveals that the Jackson King V which inspired his signature model was originally a custom shop reject that he decided to rework.
READ MORE: Wes Borland says Limp Bizkit “lost a piece of our DNA” with Sam Rivers’ death: “He can’t ever be replaced”
Borland recalls receiving a call from Jackson’s American artists relations representative Mike Tempesta, who told him a reverse-headstock King V had become available after its original owner complained that the ebony fretboard looked too much like rosewood.
“He called me and he said that there was a guitar – it was a reverse headstock King V – that they just got in,” Borland explains. “There was a return from a customer that said the fretboard was supposed to be ebony and the ebony looked like rosewood… He goes, ‘Come in and you can have it. It’s great.’”
There was just one problem.
“We opened the case and it was a left-handed. He goes, ‘Oh, it’s not reverse headstock. It’s left-handed.’ And I just went, ‘That is not a problem. I will make a project out of it.’”
And that’s exactly what Borland did.
“Between my tech and I, I did a lot of the routing and he sort of did the fine tuning, but we got a new bridge and a new nut and changed the whole thing around. We routed a new electronics cavity so that it could be in the correct place… and filled in the holes.”
While some questioned why he didn’t simply buy a standard reverse-headstock instead, Borland says the DIY approach made the instrument feel more personal.
“People have said, ‘Why would you do that? Just get a reverse headstock V.’ But for me, it’s like taking part in your instrument, like customising it. You feel like you’ve had something to do with it. Or like you’re a part of it. It becomes a little more sentimental.”
The same philosophy applies when one of his guitars gets damaged on stage.
“Especially when I’ve had guitars that have accidentally gotten broken on stage, I like putting them back together,” he says. “It’s almost like that Japanese technique [Kintsugi] where something breaks and they fill the cracks with gold – except in this case it’s just epoxy or wood glue. It makes the guitar unique.”
When it came time to develop his signature model with Jackson, Borland knew exactly what elements had to stay.
“Keeping the Jackson headstock upside down – the reverse headstock with the logo upside down – was really important,” he says. “It’s just a fantastic King V: one volume, one [Seymour Duncan] Invader and a Floyd Rose.”
Watch the full interview below.
The Pro Series Signature Wes Borland King V KV is now available at Jackson.
The post Wes Borland accidentally got a left-handed Jackson guitar by mistake… and it turned into his signature model: “Oh, it’s not reverse headstock. It’s left-handed” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
