Joe Perry

"We have the old Joe Perry mainstay here which is the clear Dan Armstrong. The only difference of this guitar from the stock one is that all these pickups are all custom-made. We've got a couple of these made, they're pretty much identical. They sound great. What we do is it's an open-A, a Keith Richards style open-A with five strings, but what Joe does is throw a bass string on the bottom and we make it an A. So it gives it that growl. This is used in 'Draw the Line'. He used to beat it up a lot, he would throw it down a lot. He's kind of mellowed out with it now. It's a good work horse. It's one of his main guitars, for sure. I mean, if you think of Joe Perry this is one of the guitars you think of," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"When you think of Joe Perry this is the other guitar people think of. This is the Blinged version of the BC Rich Bich 10. This is the 10 string, and what this does is the D, G, B and the high E are all unison and these strings are actually different gauges because it gives it a little bit different sound, a little more clarity. It gives it that good warble. He uses this one on 'Living on the Edge' and whatever else he wants - this is a drop-D. The switches are all disconnected. They all do different things but for what we're using it for right now it became a lot easier for us just to make it a volume and a tone. So I rewired past all these because we would hit something and it would change the whole complexity of the tone, so we just went back to the volume and tone Les Paul style. So that's the BC Rich," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"This is a custom shop Tele that he has. This is the 'No More No More' guitar and it's tuned in all Es and all Bs - that's it. This is what he plays on the intro, and when the lead comes up he changes guitars and throws this one behind his back and just plays his solo on a regular tuned guitar. And this is just a custom shop Tele with an interesting robotic looking pickup. It's an old Gretsch pickup from I don't know when. It's been in there forever. It came with the guitar," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"He can't do a show without his Joe Perry. This is the Joe Perry Les Paul model #1. This is the first year that he did Les Pauls. This is a very, very cool guitar. He switches guitars depending on the night. He really relies on the way it feels. If he gets a guitar, and we'll make a setlist with the guitars on there, and something doesn't sound right or feel right to him, he'll be like 'I really like the way the Tele sounds tonight' so we'll go to Teles or a Strat. It's not unlike him to completely change mid-show and just throw it all out the window. But this guitar here is very, very, very good. This guitar right here uses Ernie Ball 9s for strings. I use 8s, 9s or 10s depending on what the guitars are," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"Joe Perry's Les Paul #2. This is his Boneyard Les Paul. This was his second Gibson model. This guitar is just quite amazing, it's a beautiful guitar. The neck is very 50s, very baseball bat. He likes big fat necks. It's amazing how he'll go from one guitar from a really skinny neck and the next song with a big fat neck. It's really hard to do but he adapts really fast. This guitar, like I said, is the second one that Gibson did. It came out really well and it sounds amazing. The two pickups are wired at a phase - it's the old Greeny. That comes stock, so it's a very unique sounding guitar - it sounds different than the black one," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"This is from a company called Echopark Guitars and this guy named Gabriel Currie built this for Joe. It's called the Blue Rose. It's got an upside down whammy bar. It's got the standard regular right-handed headstock on it. Gabriel came to the studio when we were building the record and brought some guitars and Joe just loved them. So he built us a couple guitars. This is a somewhat hollow guitar so we've had to fill it up because it gets a little buzzy and feedbacky. So that takes care of it. It's a beautiful guitar. That guitar is used all over the record," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"This is a Jeff Beck Esquire, an exact - as close as you’re going to get - model to Jeff Beck's exact Esquire. I mean it's down to the scratches and the nicks. This guitar sounds really good. He'll use this one on 'Chip Away the Stone' or 'Last Child', something that's got a lot of that Tele feel to it. I put 10s on this because its mostly for a rhythm guitar. If Brad is doing the solo, we'll use this for rhythm," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"This is just your standard Fender Telecaster with a B-Bender system in there. There's nothing absolutely special about his Tele except for the fact that it has a B-Bender on it. The bridge pickup on it is a Bartolini," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"We all know and love this guitar as the Billie Guitar. This is a Gibson Lucille that actually that actually doesn't have the F holes and it's missing two of its volume and tone. This guitar is a guitar that Gibson had made custom for Joe, and Joe had this artist, John Douglas, air brush it. John did an amazing job! If you flip it there's another picture on the back. This guitar is one of those rarities that it looks really cool but it really sounds good as well. So he doesn't play it just because it has his wife's picture on it, he plays it because it sounds really good," explains Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"This is another Echopark guitar called the Ghetto Bird. If you pick it up it's pretty chunky. It's got a really big neck - Joe loves the big necks. [Gabriel] brought this guitar to the studio and as soon as I picked it up I said 'Joe is going to want this one'. It just has everything that Joe likes, it's got that look of a good sexy guitar, and it's just got that feel. The neck is a big fat neck and it sounds really, really good. This has a P90 and a Humbucker on it. It only has a volume and a tone, which Joe really likes as well. A lot of guitars lately we're just keeping volumes and no tones. Like the black Les Paul has one volume and no tone. And that's kind of his new thing. He wants the amps to do all the work," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"This is Joe Perry Les Paul #3. This guitar is brand spanking new this year. It's got the old Joe Perry name on there. When you flip it over it has the Joe Perry prototype on the back of the headstock. So we were in the studio talking about different guitars that Joe wanted this year and he wanted a lighter Les Paul with a tremolo on it. And they came up with this one. This one basically has like an Axcess body and what they've done is completely chopped away any of the meat that gave it weight so it's thinner now. It sounds really, really good. This is a Wilkinson Tremolo. I love the rollers, it's like my favorite part of it. We pull it back a whole step, that's the secret. Joe loves to go up and down, he loves to be able to bury and then get one whole step out of it on the other side. We don't know if this guitar will become a guitar that you can buy or not. We're not sure if it will become a production model. Joe is still trying to figure out if he wants it too because he really likes the fact that it's the only one," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

"We have a bunch of these. This is just your run-of-the-mill custom shop Fender Strat. But what Joe has is that all of his Strats all have something a little different than the other one. Whether it's pickups that are different or a differerent tremolo system. This here has become a main guitar for this leg of the tour right now because it's a really good sounding Strat that really chimes through and cuts really well. We're very lucky to have this one," says Joe Perry's guitar tech.

Of all the great original 1959 Standards out there—a pretty small number to begin with—Joe Perry’s own Les Paul has long been acclaimed as one of the finest. The rich, road-worn character of this guitar, serial number 9-0663, is utterly moving, and it seems to throb with the wealth of music and experience earned over decades of being played on stages and in recording studios around the world. In Joe’s own words, “It’s got everything a great Les Paul is supposed to have. The neck isn’t quite as fat as, say, a ’54 Goldtop, but it’s still got a good, meaty neck. It’s not a high-output guitar, so it’s got a lot of tone… And it’s got all the natural sustain and warmth, and when you turn it up it growls.”

You can see Joe Perry plays a Zemaitis guitar around 04:59.

You can see Joe Perry playing a Danelectro while doing his soundcheck.

You can see Joe Perry holding a Gretsch while doing his photoshoot with Ross Halfin

You can see Joe Perry playing a double-neck Gretsch on a live show.

You can see him playing it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNaEH0WnkY) on minute 01:17.

He talked about this guitar in a Gibson article.

“I’m still looking for a ’68 Goldtop. The first Les Paul I bought was a ’68 Gold top. Now that’s a sought-after Les Paul, but I only paid $300 or $400 for it at the time. I’d love to have that guitar back — especially looking like it did before I scraped the gold off of it. I’ve got a couple of Goldtops that are close, but that particular guitar is the one. One of the rumors is that after they stopped making Les Pauls in ’60 or ’61, and then started making them again in ’68, Gibson had a lot of parts left over. If that’s true, a lot of those pieces of wood were just sitting around the factory and got used. And the pickups were great.”

In this photo, Perry is seen playing the Gibson SG Special.

Joe Perry & Gibson EDS-1275

Trace Foster, Joe Perry's guitar tech, says that the Oxblood Les Paul is one of Joe's favorite guitars.

The Les Paul that Joe Perry uses in this is the second of Joe Perry's Burst-era Les Pauls. Most people will recognize his 1959 Les Paul, but the 1960 was one that he used a lot before getting his '59 back from Slash.

One of many guitars built for Joe Perry by Gabriel Currie (Echopark Guitars).

Joe Perry has Firebird in Toys in Attic era

He used this guitar a lot while touring in the mid-90s.