2
(^36)
4
14
TOTAL GUITAR MARCH 2020
MONITOR
PEOPLE - NEWS - NOISE
6
As on all my Les Pauls, the volume control for
the bridge pickup is a speed knob, and the
other three are top hats. Before in-ear monitors
I’d have to shut off the volume with my right
hand pinky on staccato parts, like the chorus of
Pour Some Sugar On Me, to prevent feedback.
I don’t need to do that any more, but I thought
it was a nice, quirky touch. Somebody has since
pointed out to me that Gary Moore did that too,
I had no idea!
3
Thebodyis lightweight
mahogany.I likelight
LesPauls;I’vehadtwoback
surgeriessoI doneedtobe
careful!Andhow’sthisfor
a coincidence:I toldPhilip
I wanteda dark,charcoal-like,
translucentfinishwhereyou
canseethewoodgrain.He
came back with this colour
called Antrim Basalt Burst,
after the basalt rocks of
the Giants Causeway on
the North Antrim coast, and
I was actually raised in County
Antrim. That was a nice bit
of serendipity...
4
In the mid-90s we were still using
wedge monitors on stage, so the
guitars were at a hefty volume and would
feed back a lot. My guitar tech and I stole
some DiMarzio HS-3 pickups off [Leppard
co-guitarist] Phil Collen’s guitar tech and
put one in the bridge position of my guitar!
I got used to the tonality, so that’s what’s
in the bridge here, with a DiMarzio Super
Distortion in the neck.
5
TonePros make really good,
professional grade, tour-
worthy hardware, and I’ve found
over the years that I need that.
My two heroes are Rory Gallagher
and Gary Moore, who were both
physical players with a really
heavy right hand. In LA in the
80s there were all these great
technical players who played like
butterflies, barely touching the
strings, whereas I was trying to
kill the thing! I’ve learned over the
years that you have to embrace
your idiosyncrasies – your
shortcomings sometimes define
your style and make you unique.
A fixed-bridge instrument fits my
aggressive playing style.
2
We based the guitar on the bastardised
Les Paul I was playing with Def Leppard
at the time. It had a slim neck from a 1978 Les
Paul Custom I’d bought in a Nashville pawn
shop for $400, and this one’s very similar. All
my Les Pauls have these jumbo Dunlop frets. I
cannot bend with little skinny frets, they have
to be big and wide. I bend aggressively in solos,
and put a lot of vibrato on chords.
1
My first guitar was a Les Paul, when I was 15. In the 80s
I played Charvel/Jackson S-types, but came back full
circle to Les Pauls just after joining Def Leppard in 1992. For
a long time, Gibson wouldn’t even return my calls. Eventually
I got a call from Philip Whorton who runs the Gibson Custom
Shop in Nashville, asking if I’d be interested in working on
a signature model. I said, ‘Absolutely!’ I’m really pleased
with it. I had the first one at the end of our 2017 tour, and
Gibson released it at the Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.
1
5
The Leppard, Dio
and Whitesnake
legend talks us
through his
beautiful
Les Paul Custom
signature model
InterviewGrantMoonPhotoKevinNixon
ME AND MY GUITAR
VIVIAN CAMPBELL
DEF LEPPARD/LAST IN LINE
Def Leppard’s new box
set, The Early Years 79-81,
is released 20th March.