Guitars' talk | Articles

[BurnThis]

Brian Mansfield discussed the many guitars that Casey played during the AI Live Tour in his article on July 2, 2010:

Turns out Casey James doesn't play five guitars on four songs. He plays six guitars on five songs, since he also plays on the American Idols Live show's finale, a cover of Bon Jovi's It's My Life.

Here's the rundown:

a 1983 blue Fender Stratocaster for I Got Mine;
a Paul Reed Smith acoustic and a white Fender Stratocaster for Don't!;
a Gibson nylon-string guitar for Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman;
a PRS Starla for It's All Over Now;
and a PRS 513 for It's My Life.

Why does he need six guitars for five songs? "Because they all sound different," Casey said afterwards. "Big time. Like night and day."

And for seriously gearheaded Casey James fans, apparently he uses Dunlop Tortex .88 mm guitar picks. Because I think he hit me on the shoulder with one when he threw it from the stage, and it landed in my shirt pocket. I say "apparently" because I didn't actually see him throw it, and I didn't find the pick until I got back to my hotel room -- though I did spend a while after the show helping the people next to me look for it.

[BurnThis]

In my interview with Casey, there was a lengthy discussion of guitars:

I asked the current owner of 27 guitars if he had his eye on the next guitar to add to his collection and was surprised when he said no. “I’ve got so many guitars that I haven’t really learned all the way through. By that I mean, really just play them to get to know their attributes and their qualities and strengths. I have so many right now that it’ll take me a minute to learn them all.” For a non-musician, that was a surprising answer. But it gave me some insight into just how dedicated he is to his craft.

So for now, the number of guitars will stay at 27? “I’ll stick with these for right now. I think I’ve got enough to get my point across for the CD.” What about after the CD comes out? “I think there’ll be a time, depending on what I use for the CD, that I might put some in a room and keep them for the next time around. Then maybe get some new ones and learn them as well and have a bigger army to pick from when the time comes.”

I asked him to explain how different one guitar is from the next. “They’re as different as night and day. The sound of a guitar — guitar players know this – what a person hears, obviously, it’s a combination of all the pedals you’re using and amps and everything. You can plug-in straight into an amp five different guitars and get five completely and totally different sounds. They are so different.”

Why are they so different, I asked? Why can you tell Stevie Ray Vaughan from the Edge from Eddie Van Halen? “There are certain times where it’s just the guitar playing, that’s what you’re noticing – the way they play as much as what they play. But there are times where you can hear, somebody has a certain tone, there’s a reason for that. They’re sticking with stuff that they know and they use consistently. A lot of people do that. A lot of people switch it up, too. There’s certain guitars that I use a lot but then, even within…, if you’re going to play a Stratocaster, for example, there are a million different models and a million different pickup choices and everything sounds different. The possibilities are literally infinite and that’s why there are a million different guitar players and they all sound different. Because you can plug in a different guitar into a different amp, and use different settings and have different pedals there are just trillions of possibilities.”

Hearing him wax enthusiastic on the subject of guitars got me thinking about an old Stevie Ray Vaughan interview where he mentioned naming his guitar his “First Wife” and discussing how special his guitars were to him. Did Casey understand what he meant? “Oh, absolutely!” Casey went on to reminisce about just a few of his special guitars. “There’s the guitar that my mom bought me for Christmas one year.” I asked which guitar that was. “It was the guitar…I never took it on the show, I didn’t feel comfortable taking it at that point. It’s a blue guitar. It’s a 40th anniversary Stratocaster.”

I asked if he still has it, and he answered as if I asked if he still had all his body parts. “Oh, I still have it!!” So why didn’t he take it with him? “I was scared that something might happen to it on the plane or on the show, the whole situation was new to me. I was okay with losing any other guitar. But I couldn’t risk that one. I didn’t take it on the tour and I didn’t play it on the show.” It was time for me to ask another stupid question. Have you played it since you got home? “Definitely,” he laughed, “I played all my guitars when I got home.”

Casey offered another example of a story that goes with one of his guitars. “There’s the one where my Paw Paw bought the pick guard for me, which was the second one … the one I played on I Don’t Want to Be. Each one has their own special meaning and stories behind them. Each one represents a part of my life and the memories that go with them. Not only that, but there’s a specific sound that they have and that they make that I need to use when I need them. If I need to sound open and airy, there’s a guitar for that, if I need it to sound throaty and dirty, there’s a guitar for that, and if I need it to sound crisp, clean and clear, there’s a guitar for that, it goes on and on….”

Will you continue to go back and forth between acoustic and electric? “It’ll be whatever the music calls for. If it needs to be mandolin, it’ll be mandolin, if it needs to be acoustic, it’s gonna be acoustic, if it needs to be electric, it’ll be electric, if it needs to be a dobro, it’ll be a dobro. If I don’t need to play then I won’t play. Whatever it is, it’s going to be. I don’t rule the music, the music rules me.”