SCRAP CRAP: PRS Guitar

About six months ago, my studyo! mate, Ryan Dumas (who also was chosen for this project because our studio rules), left some paper work on my desk explaining the details about designing a PRS Art Guitar for a charity called Music4More.org. The guitar would be sold at auction and the proceeds will be donated to provide public schools with instruments.

I was really excited when I read about this project as I had recently contacted some of my most favorite guitar playing nuts about awesome guitars of the past, the particular models they play and other guitarlike info I should know so i could replicate the guitars on a massive scale.

As I was fooling around with this project, it became very clear that the information I compiled would be used for my Art Guitar and not my replicas...and so the mock ups began...

I printed out all of the pictures and information everyone had sent me, keeping each packet separated by specific rocker and explored who I wanted to include in this guitar, who I felt would physically correlate with each other, and how I would represent their guitar in my model.

I settled on four particular rockers for this project, Scott Metzger, Eric McFadden, Robbie Mangano and Jake Szufnarowski. Its was a decision based purely on the physicality of their guitars, and what I imagined a conversation would be like if these 4 cats were in a room together. As it stirred in my mind, I felt hilarity would ensue, and well...nothing is better than that.

So- Scott Metzger, when I met him was playing his Red Les Paul....that was before he became a Red Tele man...and got an SG...so to rep scotty, I used bright red strips of duck tape.

When I met Eric McFadden on a Rocks Off! concert cruise many years ago, he was playing a sawdust shell gibson of some sort, he told me it was a real cheap guitar but he loves the way it sounds...the back side of it is really rough and course, that's why i chose to represent him with Leather.

Jake Szufnarowski has this amazing Swarovski Crystaled Gibson Flying V. While the guitar itself is awesome, the fact that he, himself, glued those fuckers on there is just impressive. Naturally, I used rhinestones to represent Jake's guitar.

And Seahag, plays a super shiny Gibson E335, which is certainly one of my most favorite guitars to watch someone play. To include Seahag in the design, I smashed vintage Bruce Springsteen vinyl.

Many, many guys took time out of their nutty schedules to send me pictures, links and emails in answer to my questions, so while these four were the specific picks, all of the guys are part of this guitar...which I think is really cool, I was super grateful that they did that. So thanks everyone! A lot, a lot!

So i got to work...this is the day I received the guitar and smashed the first album...

I started with the front, I stenciled the circles onto the guitar and began layering the vinyl pieces. Then added the rhinestones, moved up the neck of the guitar and added the rhinestoned skull which Jake has on his Flying V and layered record pieces around the skull. I also included two Red Stars on the nobs which Jake has tattooed on his arms, and is part of the Rocks Off! logo.

Then, I flipped the guitar and covered the entire body with red duck tape, and then stenciled the zebra stripes onto the body, and drew same stripes onto a yard of leather, and cut them out and glued that shiz down.

I finished off the guitar with a thin red strip around the body to connect the sides.

One would probably think, that since I hang around rockers often, I would know how to string a guitar...you couldn't be more wrong, so my buddy Stephan Frank from Tek SubPort hooked me up and strung the guitar...

The guitar was finished, just needed some cleaning up and it would be sent off on tour, showing at music festivals and shows around Maryland for the summer. Heineken Red Star got word of the guitar and became my corporate sponsor.

Press Photo...