The deFner Supremacy
This is my ‘go to’ guitar and most likely to be the one I would grab from a burning building. It started life as a Squier Strat but one of the early 1980’s Japanese ones, now known as a ‘Japanese Vintage.’ Actually my first proper guitar from when I was a kid.
It’s had a new neck fitted (I still have the original) with a flatter radius and bigger frets than the original and awesome Bare Knuckles Pick Ups fitted – Trilogy in the Neck and Middle and Sinner in the Bridge. Its also got some way cool custom wiring which gives me a whole variety of different sounds – too complicated to explain here but if I ever meet you I’ll tell you all about it. The bridge is also an upgrade to a Wilkinson floating bridge so I can still do some whammy stuff if it takes my fancy. All put together by Brian Hayward of Hayward Guitars who helped me with all the customising decisions. The only original part now is the body, which I have alluded to in the headstock logo. Great guitar for live and recording.
The Lewis ’62 Strat
Fell in love with this guitar as soon as I saw it and even more so when I played it. Made by Gary Lewis of Lewis Custom Guitars. He actually made it for himself as an exact copy of a 1962 Strat with a couple subtle differences which freakishly would have been exactly what I would asked for if he had made it for me – the switch is five way as opposed to the three way fitted in the original ’62 Strats and the fretboard has a flatter radius which is more what I’m used to.
Otherwise, its a standard set up strat that sounds every bit as good as a real ’62 Strat – and I know because I played a real one back to back with this one and, if anything, this one probably sounds better. Use this one loads both for recording and live. It just sounds amazing.