Phil Collen

This guitar is a bit of a celebrity, getting in way more places than I can.

In 1985 Grover Jackson said to me “you know we can paint anything on a guitar and make it glow in the dark”. Really was my response. What about Dracula? Sure he said get me a photo of what you want and we’ll do a version. So I found a cool shot of Bela Lugosi and it was painted on this guitar. It originally had a Kahler trem on it and in the nineties it got a facelift, new pickup and Floyd trem. Incredibly, it still sounds great even with that crazy amount of paint on it. It also has a weird history. When the specs and design, along with the photo were left on a desk. A vampire bat apparently decided to sleep on the wall above the desk. Freaking everyone out the next morning.

I still play this guitar on tour, occasionally. It stayed at the rock and hall of fame for three years, in a case, and has been on the front of many magazines and appeared in tons of videos: Sugar, Animal, Armageddon It and Rock On among others. It also has the amazing Adam Revier titanium block put in by Scott Appleton, my tech. and changed the sound dramatically. Yeah, it rocks.

How gorgeous is this? I got this guitar just before the Nine Lives video shoot. It’s called Chameleon, because at one angle it’s purple and at another it’s green (two colors I can’t see properly, being color blind). It also has a beautiful purple binding, I think, on the neck and is decked out with a titanium block and bridge saddles. I used it on the 2008 tour and it’ll be on the upcoming 2009 tour. Plays and sounds great and it’s fully loaded.

You can see it on the Nine Lives video and I used it at the Fender University seminar/clinic I did on March 6th.

On this video for Premier Guitar, called Rig Rundown, Phil himself says he uses Jacksons PC1 and a new Jackson Supreme.

Used for Hysteria, as stated by recording engineer Nigel Green in this 2017 interview.

When Mutt finally arrived on the Hysteria album he didn’t want to go through that again so we decided to go for processed guitar sounds using something called a Rock Box. Other times we would us a Rockman, made by Tom Scholz. The Rock Box had similar settings to the Rockman: a clean sound and a distorted sound. The difference was you could turn off the chorus and effects on the Rock Box allowing you to use your own effects.

So the plan was we were pretty much going to use either the Rockman, or Rock Box for everything guitar wise. If the sound was not right after we added EQ or some outboard gear then we’d maybe change to a different guitar or add some kind of effects pedal. Sometimes I would blend a Roland studio flanger in to beef some of the power chord sounds. We pretty much would try anything to make it work, but in the end if it wasn’t cutting it Mutt and the band would change the guitar part altogether.

He uses DP181 in custom black/gold finish in his signature guitar in the middle posision.

He uses D activator according to Dimarzio.

Phil Collen uses this pickup in most of his guitars its a powerful and high output pickup great for rock and roll

On the official website for DiMarzio, amongst a list of Collen's pickups, we can see the X2N.

On the official website for DiMarzio, amongst a list of Collen's pickups, we can see the Super 3 Guitar Pickup.

In this video at 12:27, when asked about picks, Collen's Guitar Tech John Zocco stated:

[Thomann]: "And the picks, I've heard some rumors about metal picks!"

[Zocco]: "Yes, they're brass, super thick I mean there's no give to these things at all..."

[T]: "Does he always use the brass picks?"

[JZ]: "It was steel up until a few years ago, and then somebody gave him a brass one, just a random, generic brass one from somewhere, that he loved and wound up using it the entire tour, this is right before I started working for him. And he had to kinda protect that pick cause it was like, the only one he had, so he'd like, put it in his pocket after a show, and just you know, really baby it cause that was the only one so... And after that Dunlop started making him the brass ones with his signature, and the Leppard logo, and all that stuff, it goes hand-in-hand with the 13s and everything just being big & heavy you know? and even with these he never breaks strings, (and now that I said that he'll probably start so...)"

[T]: "It makes sence because if you have like thicker strings, they will last way longer anyhow, then you can kinda tourture them with some materials that are not nessarly most string-friendly ones, but its probably going to work as long as normal picks would work with 9s or 10s"

[JZ]: "Yeah, and he likes the sound of it, its got a unique sound you know, when he's picking fast with it you can really hear the attack, the brass just kinda imparts its own tonality to it aswell, even other picks, I mean, I exparament with that all the time, between Tortex and Ultex, everything sounds a little bit different, and sometimes you don't think that about the tonal aspect of a pick, you just think how it feels, but the tone, it really changes the tone."

In a separate article Collen himself stated:

[PC]: "My buddy Rudy, who I grew up playing guitar with, in London, we've always had this quest for tone and sounds and Floyd Rose, DiMarzio, all that stuff, so we're constantly doing these, 'Hey, check this out...'

"And I played this thing, this brass pick, and he went 'Oh my god, this is the best pick!' So he gave it to me, I used it for the whole British tour.

"So, if I dropped it, I'd be looking on the floor. So the last gig is in London, it's Wembley, Brian May's there, from Queen...

"And I said, 'Brian, I've got this thing, I've got this brass pick that my buddy Rudy gave to me. I play this because it's kind of a tribute to you. You use the sixpence, so here you go.'

"He said, 'Oh, no, no, I can't if a friend gave it to you.' I said 'No, I'm sure he'd be fine if Brian May's got the pick...'

"So yeah, Brian took it, and since then Dunlop makes me brass picks with Def Leppard logo. It's got my name on there, it's got 'Def Leppard.'"

Collen uses D’Addario 13 gauge strings.

The article says Collen uses 13-54 gauge strings, but there aren't any on D'Addario's website so I think it's safe to say it's a custom gauge.

Phil Collen has been a proud D'Addario Rock Artist since 2007, using D'Addario EXL145 Nickelwound Heavy Gauge Strings (12-54) as featured on the D'Addario website.

Phil Collen has been a proud D'Addario Rock Artist since 2007, using D'Addario EJ16 Phosphor Bronze .012-.053 Acoustic Guitar Strings, as detailed on the D'Addario artist page.

On the official website for DiMarzio, amongst a list of Collen's pickups, we can see the HS-2.

On the official website for DiMarzio, amongst a list of Collen's pickups, we can see The Cruiser Bridge Pickup.

On the official website for DiMarzio, amongst a list of Collen's pickups, we can see The Angel Guitar Pickup.

In this video, Phil Collen shows his rack rig, which consists of two TC Electronic D-Two delay units.

In this video at 4:00, Collen's Guitar Tech John Zocco states:

"...And because he plays heavy strings we don't have any issues with breakage... He doesn't have toxic sweat, so they don't get like completly corroded after a show which is nice, and I do hit 'em with a little cleaner, I'll either use the D'Addario stuff or now I've been using a lot of Music Nomads products, and they got a cool thing, so I'll like wipe it down, it kinda slicks 'em up a little bit, keeps 'em fresh so...

In this interview previously published about the Rockman x100 being used on Hysteria, Phil Collen mentions a small Gallien-Krueger amp that was also used in “Animal” and “Hysteria.” The amp is none other than the Gallien-Krueger 250ML that was manufactured throughout the 80s. It produces sounds that very closely mimic the Rockman, but with much more power at 100 watts!

In this Youtube video Phil demos his signature model played through an EVH 5150. It’s a 100W EL34 model because of the gold color and position of the knobs.

Phil Collen is confirmed to have used the Randall RG100HT guitar amplifier head, as evidenced by an article on steveclarkguitar.com. The article states, "Both Phil [Collen] and Steve [Clark] use a sound system [for this tour] consisting of a Randall RG100 guitar pre-amp and T.C.1210 from TC Electronics (Expander + stereo chorus / flanger) and a T.C.2290 (digital delay)." Additionally, the image above from the 1980s shows Steve Clark’s rack containing three rackmounted Randall RG100HT amplifiers, further supporting this claim.

Phil Collen uses the DiMarzio DP 427BK+G Sugar Chakra pickup, as confirmed by the DiMarzio website. This signature pickup is featured in many of his personal Jackson PC-1 guitars.

In the left section of the image shared on this Facebook post, you can clearly see a young Phil Collen holding a white 3-pickup Gibson Les Paul SG Custom.

He is seen playing a Model 3 live with Def Leppard in Italy in 1988.