Nothing pulls on the heartstrings of a guitarist more than the thought of a beloved axe being stolen. But when Warren Haynes lost his go-to electric guitar – a red Custom Shop Fender Strat that was by his side as he went from Dickey Betts' foil to a star of the Allman Brothers Band – it forced him to rethink his guitar of choice.
“That particular Strat, it had a really beefy and wide neck, it had the Lace Sensor pickups with the Clapton midrange boost, but there was something really special about that guitar,” he reminisces with MusicRadar.
To Haynes, it wasn’t just another Fender Stratocaster; its feel and quirks made it one of a kind. In particular, that peculiar midrange boost, designed by Fender to supercharge single-coil pickups into fatter, ultra-hot humbucking territory, was a game changer. However, one day it was cruelly stolen.
As the 1990s dawned, Haynes pivoted to a white Strat to fill the hole left behind after the theft of his beloved. But it wasn’t the same, and it fast-tracked a tonal switch that was already in motion.
“When it got stolen, I was already starting to concentrate more on playing Les Pauls and gravitating back towards the Gibson sound,” he confesses. “And when the Strat got stolen, it forced me to think differently because every other Strat I picked up at the time didn’t have the same feeling to me.”
Three decades later, the Strat remains missing, but its lineage lives on in his all-new P-90 loaded Les Paul signature. Amongst its cluster of Tone and Volume controls is a toggle clean boost, which acts similarly, and its cherry red colorway is a far less subtle nod to his former flame.
“I am looking for new inspiration, something to change the way that I play at any given moment,” he told Guitar World as the Les Paul hit the shelves, marking a third different era following Strats and PAF-loaded LPs.
In the early '90s, he'd done likewise when he realized he couldn't replace the Strat like-for-like. Both instances showcase Haynes' adaptability and prove that, no matter how experienced a player may be, there is always room for further experimentation.
That being said, he still harbors hopes of being reunited with the red Strat. Hell, Paul McCartney's Höfner bass was missing for 50 years before it was found in an English attic, and Bon Jovi was recently reunited with the first-ever guitar he bought, 45 years after selling it. So the hope he hangs onto isn't overly fanciful.
“I would love to get that guitar back,” Haynes admits. “I got a call a few years ago, someone thought they had found it, but it wasn’t the one.”
Meanwhile, Haynes has discussed his greatest Gov't Mule riffs and confessed a love for one particular Jazzmaster.
