BURNS GUITARS STATEMENT - PLEASE NOTE THAT I HAVE RETURNED MY BURNS GUITAR AND CANCELLED MY SPONSORSHIP DEAL, DUE TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE LESS PLAYABLE THAN A ROUGH PLANK OF WOOD.

Over the years I’ve played a number of different guitars, some I still have and others are no longer with me. In Bobalouis I had my first decent guitar which I wish I still had now - a Rickenbacker 480 ( the same shape as the 4001 bass). It had a very thin neck and quite a toppy sound which was ideal for the 60s/mod type stuff we were playing then.

At the Bridge House in Canning town with Vince from The Cockney Rejects, Albie, Diggle and Bins

When Sham first formed I switched to a Gibson SG standard whcih I used on our first EP ’I don’t wanna’ and the ‘Tell us the truth’ album along with live work. Unfortunatly this guitar was broken beyond repair. More on the SG later.

Next I moved to a white Les Paul custom, any way one night at a gig when it was on stage on it’s stand a beer glass came flying out of the crowd which I followed in slow motion as it tracked it’s way to the head of the guitar and broke it clean off. I had the neck repaired and sold it, replaceing it with my trusty Les Paul deluxe whch I still have to this day, I used this guitar as my main work horse on all the following sham albums up to ‘Volunteer’ and including the Wanderers album. I also used it with Framed and The INC.

Around the time of ‘Info Libre’ I bought a Tockai telecaster which just happened to be the nicest tele I could find one afternoon in London. I’ve used this guitar for nearly all live work up untill a few months ago. I shaved the top of the body as per a strattacaster for comfort and have just fitted a Seymour Duncan humbucker at the bridge possition, the great thing about this pick up is that it’s the same size as a single coil pick up which makes for easy fitting.I wish I’d done this before. For recording I was useing this guitar and a late 80s Fender Stratt with lace sensor pick ups.

Just recently I’ve returned to Gibson, useing a 90s SG
Standard for live work and for recording the new album.
I’d forgotten just how good these guitars are, the weight
the ballance the sound the neck - just fantastic.Here’s a
shot from our gig at the 100 club on April 15th.

As for acoustics, I’ve only ever owned one good quality guitar. When I was trying out guitars I tried everything I could get my hands on, Martins, Guilds, Gibsons etc etc and finally ended up with a Harptone which seemed to have the best frequency range and was damn loud. The only other people I’ve ever seen play a Harptone was David Bowie, if you’ve ever seen his Top of the pops performance of ‘Starman’ you can recognise it by it’s distictive head stock - mind you, Bowies was a twelve string mines a six.,and George Harrison who used them on My sweet lord.

Here are a few photo’s of other guitars I’ve played.