In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell talked about his approach to guitar collecting. Cantrell admitted he isn’t a die-hard gear collector, and compared his approach to guitar shopping with Kirk Hammett.
“I think the last guitar I got was from Gibson. They gave me a pink champagne sparkle Flying V,” he said.
He added, “I still buy guitars but I’m not like Joe Bonamassa or Kirk. Kirk will spend a quarter-million, half-million dollars on a guitar. He’s got Peter Green’s guitar; Slash has a few of them too: some pretty spendy ’59 Les Pauls. I think 12 or 15 grand may be the most I’ve ever spent on a guitar.”
Over his 40+ year career, Hammett has built a big guitar collection, but one of his most cherished instruments dates back to his early days. Hammett shared the story behind his first prized guitar, a Gibson Flying V, and how a job at Burger King helped him get it in an earlier interview.
“I remember I was going out with this one girl at the time, she said, ‘Let’s go to Burger King.’ So we’re sitting there, eating a Whopper or something, and she goes, ‘I’ll be right back.’ She comes back and she goes, ‘I got you an application for a job here. Sign here.’ I’m like, ‘Huh?'”
Hammett thought it was a great idea. “But then… I thought, ‘This is brilliant. I’ll just work at Burger King just long enough for me to save up some money, so I can trade in my [old] Strat and maybe $200 or $300 toward a brand-new black Flying V that was at Leo’s Music in Oakland.”
In other news, Jerry Cantrell has hinted at the possibility of a collaboration with James Hetfield.
“James and I have talked about it, kind of. We never had a formal conversation but I’ve jammed with him at Kirk’s place. I’ve even spent a night or two at his house, and we’ve ended up with guitars in the kitchen and on the porch. It’s something I’d be really curious about, even to just write a song with him,” he said during an interview.
Cantrell will be promoting his upcoming solo album, ‘I Want Blood,’ across North America next year. The tour starts on January 31 in Niagara Falls.
