Red_Label
New member
In my 35 years of playing and owning close to maybe 200 instruments I've never owned an Explorer. Weird shaped, weird feeling guitars generally aren't my thing. Hell... I marry have only played an Explorer once or twice in all these years. But I dig the way they look on Lizzy Hale, Matthias Jabs, the guy from The Killers, and others. They flat-out scream rock & roll the way they look. You can associate Strats, LPs, 335s, and others with country, jazz, and blues. But Explorers, Flying Vs, SGs, and Firebirds mostly suggest rock/metal. Kind of ironic that those are the four models that I haven't owned and rarely played.
I've gigged country, rock, and metal since the 80s. I guess that I've never cared for the way they sit and balance on me. The Explorer balances the best of those four. I can't stand the headstock-heavy balance of the Firebirds, Vs and SGs. The Explorer still feels strange to me, but I think I can get used to it. If not, I can sell it for what I paid for it. It's a recent model that came into my buddy's store used... but still has the plastic on the guard. He had a luthier replace the robo-tuners with locking Grovers and replaced the lead-weighted control cavity cover... as well as giving it a great setup job. I think it might hang around a bit. Just makes me wanna rock. Played through a bunch of Accept, Candlebox, and Gin Blossoms today and felt like it fit well. Wanted to do a bunch of Scorpions, but didn't get to it. I may end up throwing a set of Fralin Pure PAFs or a JB/59 in there... or maybe some DiMarzio 36th Anniversary PAFs. Gonna give the stock pups a few more days first though.
I've gigged country, rock, and metal since the 80s. I guess that I've never cared for the way they sit and balance on me. The Explorer balances the best of those four. I can't stand the headstock-heavy balance of the Firebirds, Vs and SGs. The Explorer still feels strange to me, but I think I can get used to it. If not, I can sell it for what I paid for it. It's a recent model that came into my buddy's store used... but still has the plastic on the guard. He had a luthier replace the robo-tuners with locking Grovers and replaced the lead-weighted control cavity cover... as well as giving it a great setup job. I think it might hang around a bit. Just makes me wanna rock. Played through a bunch of Accept, Candlebox, and Gin Blossoms today and felt like it fit well. Wanted to do a bunch of Scorpions, but didn't get to it. I may end up throwing a set of Fralin Pure PAFs or a JB/59 in there... or maybe some DiMarzio 36th Anniversary PAFs. Gonna give the stock pups a few more days first though.
