Robert Jon & The Wreck’s guitarist expresses a love for Firebirds and details a sorry experience with a Jimmy Page Telecaster
What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money?
“Let’s see… probably my SG. I have a 2004 ’61 reissue that I bought a couple of years ago. A couple of years before that I actually built my own Strat. So it would be one of those two – probably the Strat because that one was more of a labour-intensive thing.
“I bought the parts individually and a local luthier helped me put it together. It had a left-handed neck and a sunburst body that I got on the internet, and then I gota custom pickguard from Warmoth. Originally, it had two Firebird pickups and then eventually I took those pickups out to put them in an actual Firebird. And now the guitar has a standard three-pickup setup with the reverse bridge pickup. So it’s kind of a little Jimi Hendrix-ish tribute. Something about the reverse stuff balances out the sound a little better for me.”
What was the last guitar you bought and why did you decide to buy it?
“The most recent guitar I bought was my Epiphone Firebird. I bought it in 2021. I changed the pickups out to Seymour Duncans and changed the bridge and the tailpiece, and it’s my main touring guitar now. I am a big Lynyrd Skynyrd fan and I especially like Allen Collins. There was just a curiosity; I thought it was a really cool ‐looking guitar and the sound of it was attractive to me, so I thought I would try it out. It turned out that the first one I ever bought stood up to the test of the road. And so I continue to use it.”
What’s the most incredible find or bargain you’ve had when buying gear?
“The guitar I mentioned earlier, the SG. Knowing in the last couple of years how much the prices have gone up on used Gibsons and stuff like that, I got it for much cheaper than they’re going for nowadays. I use it as my onstage slide guitar. I play open E tuning slide and it’s my main guitar for that. They can have a tendency to neck-dive, and the one I have does neck-dive, but it’s never been a huge problem for me as long as I have a strap that grips. I think if you have some source of friction in the right spot, it tends to negate it a little bit.”
What’s the strongest case of buyer’s remorse you’ve experienced?
“I bought a Telecaster a couple of years ago – one of the Jimmy Page Dragon Telecasters – and I am currently in the process of trying to sell it. It just wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I’ve used it on recordings occasionally. But I barely play it; I jus
