Tommy Thayer

In this rig rundown of Kiss gear from Premier Guitar, this Gibson Custom Shop '59 Les Paul Standard is listed as one of Tommy's guitars. One of Tommy Thayer’s favorites is a 1959 Reissue Gibson Custom Les Paul. At (7:26) in this video, Thayer says, “This is my guitar that I've been using for the last couple of years. As you can see it's a Tobacco Sunburst Custom Shop Standard. Great sounding guitar. I've been using it as my number one guitar on this tour, but I think we're going to get that white one in there now.” The guitar has Seymour Duncan JB open-coil humbucker pickups. At (7:44) Thayer says, “I've switched over a few weeks ago to these Seymour Duncan pickups. I think they're JBs or something, aren't they?”

His new rare guitar - Flying "Steel Rocket"

In this video, Thayer shows off his brand new Gibson Custom Les Paul. He says, “you can see it's a beautiful metallic white, like an alpine white... with a 3-ply binding. So it's very kind of a little more subtle on the binding. I didn't want it to look too blocky.” According to Thayer, “all the parts are chrome, pickguard... you know, everything.”

During Kiss Kruise VIII Tommy Thayer played some songs on Ace Frehley's Les Paul model

In this Premier Guitar video interview, Tommy Thayer talks about his signature amp at 1:40, saying, “This is the Hughes & Kettner Tommy Thayer signature Duotone. I've done this amp for about eight years now. Hughes & Kettner has done a fine job. They've been a great supporter. Obviously, I love the amp a lot, because I'm still playing it eight years later. I haven't replaced it with something else.” He goes on to say, “But these are great. It's something sweet and really robust, but very ballsy about the way these sound. I'm really, really happy. It's a two-channel amp. I mainly use the Overdrive channel. …No effects, actually. Occasionally I might put an effect into a loop. We were doing "Christine Sixteen" recently, so I had an octave divider that my tech manually operated for me during the guitar solo because there was an octave effect on the guitar solo. Other than that, very little or no effects. That's always been more my philosophy. It's about keeping it really simple and right down to the pure, basic essence of what I'm doing. These are great amps... All the royalties that I make on these amps, I donate directly to the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, which is a charitable cause I really believe in. Children's health and all that sort of thing are really important. That's worked out good. I've been able to give them the royalties and so everybody's happy.”

used in 2008 Kiss Alive/35 tour in Europe

In this user-uploaded photo, Tommy Thayer is playing a Gibson Les Paul Custom during a Black N' Blue concert.

"From my experience, the Explorers and the Flying Vs, and things like that, they have a little more of that midrange honk to them, which is nice."(6:30) Tommy shows his Gibson Custom Shop Explorer in this rig rundown for Premier Guitar.

In a rig rundown for Premier Guitar, Tommy Thayer's Gibson Les Paul Classic is shown as the guitar use for the iconic KISS pyrotechnics.

Taken from Tommy Thayer's official website, he discusses a little about his Gibson Explorer, "Inspired by the fantastic silver sparkle finish Gibson Les Paul I have, I thought it would be cool to do an Explorer the same way. I've been playing this guitar during our encores as a change of pace from my workhorse Les Pauls".

Tommy discusses this guitar in this Guitar World interview:

"GUITAR WORLD: It’s been two years since you teamed up with Epiphone to release your signature Spaceman Les Paul. How is the new White Lightning Les Paul different?

There are a lot of similarities. The look, design and color scheme are different, obviously. The pickups are different too. In the last year or two, I started using Seymour Duncan JB pickups again.

I used them a long time ago. I was using Gibson pickups for a long time. I’m not sure why, but one day we put a set of JB’s back in the guitar and it sounded great. It was just one of those things where you are chasing the sound; it was something different that peaked my interest."

He used it at the Rock Honors show in L.A. in '06.

Tommy Thayer frequently uses the Epiphone Les Paul Standard Pro in various color variations, with the most popular being the one featured in an Instagram post where he is seen recording guitar overdubs at Jay DeMarcus's Nashville studio.

Here you can see Tommy Thayer playing yellow Fender Telecaster

In the Guitar Bonedo YouTube video titled "Tommy Thayer - Modern Day Delilah Guitar Tutorial," Tommy Thayer discusses his use of Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky Guitar Strings (9-46). He mentions preferring the lighter top strings for ease of play, although he has considered switching to a straight 10-46 gauge due to occasionally breaking E-strings.

He used this model in 2008 Kiss Alive/35 tour in Europe

In this Guitar World interview, Tommy mentions his '72 Telecaster Deluxe:

"There was a time in the Eighties when no one wanted Les Pauls. Everyone wanted Charvels and Jacksons. I actually bought one of my best guitars back then. This one was a ‘72 Deluxe that was routed out for regular humbuckers. I bought it at this guitar shop in Hollywood in 1985 or 1986 for like $350. No one wanted them, but I sure did and I took advantage of the great prices. By the time Guns N' Roses came out, things changed and Gibsons became real popular again."

A cool picture of Tommy Thayer with his signature Epiphone Les Pauls

On this photo Tommy Thayer playing Gibson SG Standard in a studio

Tommy Thayer and Paul Stanley are playing the first verse of "Lick it Up" from private unmasked concert in Orono, Aug. 2, 2016 with black standard Les Pauls.

Tommy Thayer can be seen playing a Gibson Les Paul Standard 2018 during a jam session at Rock Fantasy Camp, as shown in a post on his official Instagram account.

Here you can see Tommy Thayer with black Epiphone SG Special

Tommy Thayer runs his amplifiers through 4x12 Engl speaker cabinets. At (2:47), Thayer says, “We have these Kiss custom cabinets. They are 4x12s, much like a Marshall. Actually now on this tour, before I started the tour I did some AB-ing. I'm actually using a couple of Engl cabinets up there right now. Don't tell the guys in Hughes & Kettner... We have a guy on our crew, he's actually my guitar tech, a former guitar tech, he works with Engl, and he convinced me that it has a nice sound. And we AB'd them and it did sound good.”

He used this guitar in the studio and during Black N' Blue reunions

A photo of Tommy Thayer with his signature Epiphone Les Paul, which he is very proud of

A cool picture of Tommy Thayer with his signature Epiphone Explorer

In a Guitar Bonedo YouTube tutorial titled "Tommy Thayer - Modern Day Delilah Guitar Tutorial," Tommy Thayer is shown using Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Guitar Strings (10-46), highlighting his occasional use of this string gauge.

Tommy Thayer lets Robbie Krieger (The Doors) test his signature guitar. Tommy tested Robbie's signature Gibson too

Here you can see Tommy Thayer playing on white Dean Cadillac during Black N' Blue concert

His signature guitar has 498T pickups.