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“No one’s asked me!”: John Squire on why he’s never had a signature guitar
“Jimmy Page once said to me, ‘Have Gibson not been onto you?’ And I said, ‘No, maybe I play too many Strats,’ although I think it’s more likely that they don’t know who I am.”
Image: NurPhoto / Getty Images
The knowledge that John Squire has never released a signature guitar might come as a surprise given his status as one of Britain’s most influential rock guitarists of the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Speaking in the March issue of Guitarist magazine, the Stones Roses guitarist weighs in on the reasons behind his lack of signature guitars, saying, “No one’s asked me.”
“Jimmy Page once said to me, ‘Have Gibson not been onto you?’ And I said, ‘No, maybe I play too many Strats.’ Jimmy said, ‘Yeah, probably,’” Squire recalls, before adding, “I think it’s more likely to be that they don’t know who I am.”
While we certainly have doubts about the latter, the guitarist might actually be on to something with his ‘too many Strats’ theory, at least as far as his new album with Liam Gallagher is concerned.
Released last week, the collaborative record has Squire using a “red 2012 Strat” for most of his guitar parts.
“It’s a Todd Krause Custom Shop and the inscription is from Fools Gold,” he says. “I bought it during the Roses reunion and it was a hotel guitar because it always sounded a bit puny. But it was just in this room when I started writing the album. I knew I was going on holiday during the writing period, so I thought, ‘Why don’t I get a mobile system together?’”
To keep his rig “simple”, Squire says that he “didn’t use any [effects] boxes. I did it all with AmpliTube. And when I tried that Strat it just all fell into place. I had a ’57 Tobacco Burst Strat, too – and it was dogshit compared with that new one. It’s mainly the tone.”
“On the rhythm pickup, it sounded mega. I always used to prefer darker woods, but it’s got a flame maple neck. That guitar is on every track. There’s a little bit in the Rainbow solo where I doubled that with a Firebird, just like a one-bar phrase that stands out.”