
How the Grateful Dead, 19th-century Johann Georg Stauffer acoustics, and Lindsey Buckingham’s fried Hiwatts inspired Rick Turner to create his legendary Model 1 electric—and single-handedly establish the boutique guitar industry.
Although some of its features are fairly commonplace on modern electrics, the Model 1’s advanced EQ, custom rotating humbucker (which had fewer windings and a wider frequency response than most pickups of the day), and onboard preamp blazed a trail that led the way to countless advances we take for granted today. Let’s take a look at the journey that led Turner to his place at the head of the boutiqueguitar family tree.
Turner’s Musical Beginnings
Turner moved with his beloved Martin D-28 and Epiphone Howard Roberts from Massachusetts to New York City in 1966. He started playing coffeehouses in Greenwich Village and in Boston with Lowell “Banana” Levinger and Jerry Corbitt (who, with Jesse Colin Young, went on to form the Youngbloods). He had already spent time touring with the folk duo Ian and Sylvia, and had also worked with musicianturned- producer Felix Pappalardi (often referred to as “the fourth member of Cream”). Turner’s musical interests continued to evolve, and by the end of the decade he was in the psychedelic band Autosalvage. They opened for Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, and their album got great reviews in Rolling Stone and Crawdaddy. Not that it mattered.
“We quit before we got those reviews!” Turner laughs. “We were way ahead of Spinal Tap, man. And the best gig we ever did was with a band called the Children of Paradise that had Artie Traum and Happy Traum in it. It was at a mental institution on Halloween!”
At the same time, Turner was also earning a little cash doing guitar repair. “I apprenticed in ’63 for a couple of guys in Boston.
“I learned luthiery primitive from these guys,” Turner continues. “When I look back at the way we did things, I’m in shock. I mean, it was just horrendous. Those were the dark ages of American small-shop luthiery and guitar repair. Nobody knew anything outside of the factories— nobody knew Jack Diddley squat. A few classical builders were starting to do things, and I knew a few people just starting to try to build acoustic guitars. We who got into it in the early to mid ’60s were really on our own in terms of ‘How do you do this?’ and ‘How do you do that?’ Some of the repair techniques were utterly brutal. We didn’t know about steaming necks off for doing neck resets, we just slammed them out!”
Despite the fact that Autosalvage broke up, the band still played a role in Turner’s guitar- building future. “This guy who was a fan of our band brought me these pieces—an SG neck, a completely smashed SG body, and the pickup harness—and said, ‘Here, you want this? Seventy-five bucks,’” Turner recalls. “I said, ‘sure.’ So I had the neck and the wrecked body. I did this body shape that made it symmetrical and took the design to this cabinet shop on Broadway and Bleecker. They cut it out for me in mahogany, and I took it home and hacked away and veneered the back of it with walnut. Jerry Garcia wound up buying that guitar and used it on the Grateful Dead’s “Skull and Roses” album. That’s the guitar— and it has disappeared. Nobody knows where it is.”
Asked what inspired him to buy 75 bucks’ worth of broken guitar, Turner answers simply, “I wanted to build my own guitar, you know? By that time I had been doing guitar repair for four years or so, so I had the chops. In fact, in New York, when I was broke and needed to pick up a few bucks, I would go down to Dan Armstrong’s shop and say, ‘Dan, you got anything for me to do?’ And he would always toss me a fret job or have me glue a bridge on a Martin and pick up 10 or 15 bucks.”
Turner ended up moving to Marin County, just north of San Francisco, and more or less joined the Grateful Dead family. He did an inlay job on one of Phil Lesh’s basses and made a few custom pickups for the band. “In 1968 or ’69, where did you buy pickups? You could get DeArmonds and that was about it. You couldn’t buy Gibson pickups or Fender pickups. Dan Armstrong started making pickups under the tutelage of Bill Lawrence, and I thought, ‘Well, this is just a little cord with a little wire and some magnets—duh!’ And so I started literally handwinding my own pickups, counting the windings by hand. I brought them out to the Dead’s warehouse and showed Ron Wickersham, who had figured out how to measure the frequency response in the pickups. This was when nobody knew anything about what was really going on. The stuff that we take for granted now, we had to invent and figure out.”
The Alembic Years and Fleetwood Mac
Thus began Turner’s critical, tumultuous Alembic period. Turner co-founded Alembic with Wickersham, and the company’s initial aim was to push the envelope of live sound through the medium of Grateful Dead shows.
A corner of Turner’s factory with the original Model 1 blueprint on the wall.
Turner worked on practically everything Alembic touched, including designing speaker cabinets to eliminate standing waves in the Dead’s Wall of Sound PA system— which had McIntosh power amps pushing 125,000 watts through 450 drivers. Once Turner, Wickersham, and the other folks at Alembic had tackled the acoustic and electronic considerations of large PA systems, they focused on the instruments— primarily Lesh’s basses and Garcia’s guitars. Soon things started to snowball: A carving job Turner did for an early Alembic bass made for Jack Casady helped put Alembic on the map as an instrument maker, as did their work for Stanley Clarke.
Before Turner’s time with Alembic was up, he found himself involved with another milestone in the history of rock and roll—the studio sessions for Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album, which the band was recording at the Record Plant just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. Turner was sent over to do a setup on John McVie’s Alembic #33 bass, and he ended up staying for much of the sessions to work as a guitar tech because Lindsey Buckingham’s Strat had an Alembic Strat-o-Blaster preamp that kept blowing his Hiwatt amps.
“The preamp was turned up all the way—that’s 12 dB of gain coming out of the Strat-o-Blaster!” Turner relates. “Evidently, the Hiwatts were set up so that the gain structure expected a normal electric guitar output from the guitar. When you jacked it up by 12 dB, the amp tried to suck more current through the power transformer and it just fried. But it sounded great for about 15 or 20 minutes! [Laughs.] At about that same time, I did a Strat-o-Blaster in Lowell George’s Strat. So that whole Waiting for Columbus live album by Little Feat—that’s all Lowell with his Strat cranked way past 11.”
Turner left Alembic in 1978 with many lessons learned. “Alembic electric guitars were noted for being too clean and sterile sounding,” he notes. “And it was often attributed to the electronics. I came to the conclusion that it was not the electronics— it was the way the guitars were made. The very stiff neckthrough- body construction, with a primarily maple and purpleheart neck, didn’t allow enough warmth and body to come in.”
Given his involvement with the legendary acid-trip rock band of the flower power era (and of all time), as well as the freewheeling, “free love” reputation of the scene it dominated, one could easily assume Turner sort of stumbled onto the recipes that his highcaliber instruments and electronics are known for. Nothing could be further from the truth. He studied acoustics and the science of sound extensively, and even took Don Davis’s famed Synergetic Audio Concepts (aka “SynAudCon”) class. He also learned invaluable lessons from his association with Wickersham (whom he calls “a genius”), John Curl—who remains on the cutting age of audio design—and Dead live sound mixer Owsley “Bear” Stanley. In fact, the lessons garnered from this time with Alembic and the Rumours sessions with Buckingham were crucial to Turner’s development of the Model 1.
“Based on talks with Lindsey, and also the general criticism of Alembic guitars, I started thinking very deliberately,” says Turner. “I said, ‘Okay, what I’ve got to do is climb down off this branch of the tree and get down on the ground and look around for another tree to go up, in terms of guitar design.’ I went to a set-neck guitar with a mahogany body to try to get the best of both worlds. I wanted more of that clarity from the body, because I had played that hybrid SG and didn’t like its whippy neck. I also thought the SG was fabulous within about a one-octave range, so I wanted to extend that range. The choice of an arched top and back was very deliberate. I really thought about every aspect of the instrument. And then I showed Lindsey the blueprints and he said, ‘Oh, you know, I’d get one of these. I’d like the first one.’ And then Alembic blew up on me. Part of the settlement was that I left with the design.”
Few get to see the beauty of the Model 1’s backside
Acoustic Roots Electrified, Then Unplugged
The Model 1 blueprint, which sits high on a wall above a workbench in Turner’s factory, is torn on one side and looks deceptively simple. Asked if trial and error were part of the process when going from blueprint to the first Model 1 sent to Buckingham, Turner says, “I knew what I was going to make. I knew what it was going to sound like. I got the first one made and plugged it in, and it was exactly what I had thought it would be. And that was the guitar that really showed me that I could design from scratch and know what the results were going to be—sonically, as well as aesthetically. It was a turning point for me in gaining confidence as a designer.”
Although its forward-thinking features revolutionized the electricguitar universe, the Model 1 was inspired by designs from way back in the history of 6-string luthiery. “I had this Stauffer guitar from 1820s Vienna—[Johann Georg] Stauffer was the guy who taught C.F. Martin how to build guitars,” Turner explains. “The Model 1 is basically a Stauffer with a cutaway and slight modifications.”
With those roots, as well as the soundhole look of its unique, rotating pickup assembly, it’s not surprising that most people think the Model 1 is hollow. “But it isn’t,” Turner says. “It’s a solidbody. I wanted a mahogany body that would give it warmth like the original Les Paul Custom, the ‘Black Beauty’—which is all mahogany and doesn’t have the maple cap. I was looking for the warmth and sustaining quality of the mahogany and the clarity of the Strat.”
However, considering the Model 1’s rather petite outline, what is somewhat surprising is that the guitar is on the heavy side—but that seems to lend it a resonance and character beyond most traditional electrics. “That’s the combination of the mahogany and the maple and purpleheart neck,” says Turner, who also attributes those properties to the relatively wideband humbucker and its ability to remain remarkably clear. “Then you throw in the EQ, which lets you do some really trick things with amp voicings—you know, tickle the tubes with a nice midrange boost.”
These days, Turner manufactures Model 1 electronics in his shop and at D-TAR, the company he founded with Seymour Duncan. The first Model 1’s electronics— which were basically a single channel of parametric EQ without a bandwidth control—were made by Jim Furman. When Turner worked at Alembic, their guitars had similar features but never quite realized their tonal potential, whereas his Model 1 capitalized on an impeccable blend of excellent woodworking, playability, electronics, and, most importantly, tone.
“I kind of like a challenge, so part of the exercise with the Model 1 was seeing how far I could take a singlepickup instrument. It had a frequency sweep control, and then boost and cut, and then EQ in and EQ out, and Volume and Tone. So it had Volume and passive Tone and an EQ section.”
Naturally, the electronics have evolved over the years. Considering its creator, how could they not? Turner expanded the versatility of the rotating humbucker by adding a piezo pickup and updated electronics that allow you to split the magnetic pickup or bypass the onboard EQ. Turner is also developing a more affordable model without the piezo and EQ circuit.
A Turner Model 1 waiting to be finished
Back to His Roots
After turning the electric-guitar universe inside out, Turner’s next logical move was back to his acoustic beginnings. And his purposes there stemmed from a similar dissatisfaction with amplified acoustic tone. Some audio engineers have a hard time listening to music on the radio because of the poor processing and mixing common to commercial music. Turner has similar issues with recordings of acoustic guitars. “Very often, amplified acoustics drive me crazy! God bless him, but I think Dave Matthews sounds like shit! That ultra-quacky piezo sound is not something I like.”
Turner’s issues with piezos in acoustic instruments is what pushed him to form an alliance with Duncan and develop the D-TAR Wavelength, which uses modeling technology, a piezo pickup, a condenser mic, and an 18-volt preamp. Duncan’s VP of engineering, Kevin Beller, helped Turner figure out what he didn’t like about piezos on acoustics.
“I was hearing piezo quack as being very fast clipping,” Turner says. “Well, we finally got to measure it, and Kevin started doing some ball-bearing drops—just dropping a ball bearing through a tube, down a foot, and onto a piezo pickup. And he was getting spikes of 100 volts out of the pickup. When you lay into the strings, you get that very first spike. Under a bridge—under a load—you’re not going to get 100 volts, but you’re going to get more than the nine volts that are available from the preamp. It clips. And a lot of the quack is the recovery of the preamp from that hit. By going to an 18-volt system, you clean things up tremendously.
“The other issue with undersaddle pickups is that, compared to an acoustic guitar, they are relatively phase-coherent,” Turner continues. “But the sound of an acoustic guitar is phase incoherent. It’s all screwed up, because it takes time for the frequencies to propagate out into a top and release into the acoustic field—and it takes different amounts of time for different frequencies. And then you’ve got the low sound coming out of the soundhole, which is also phase incorrect. So what we have come to love is the phase incoherency of acoustic instruments. With a piezo, you’re so close to the string that you’re actually intercepting the vibration before it gets to the guitar. One of the reasons that the piezo sound is so in-your-face is because the highs are coming at you too fast. So one reason we went to digital modeling was to selectively slow down different frequencies based on these complex algorithms. You can get all theoretical about it and say, ‘Oh, the theory about it is wrong,’ but all I care about is my ears. I like the theory to understand what my ears are hearing, but I don’t want to study the theory to tell my ears what to hear.”
A Turner masterpiece in production for an undisclosed client. This instrument will have nylon strings and be equipped to work with Roland guitar synths.
Turner on the State of the Boutique Family
With five decades of guitar building under his belt, Turner naturally has opinions about the state and future of boutique guitar makers. He expects to see faster price increases from instruments made in Asia—especially China, where there’s a burgeoning middle class that will probably start competing for the worldwide demand. Of North American makers, Turner gives Jean Larrivée, Santa Cruz Guitars’ Richard Hoover, and Bob Taylor credit for being on the ground floor of boutique guitar construction. “I just hope that American guitar makers can hold on through the economy.”
Turner is encouraged by the fact that electric players seem to be looking beyond Les Pauls and Strats—though he is thinking about coming out with his own take on the Stratocaster. Given that his Model 1 is basically his take on the Les Paul, there is little doubt his interpretation of the Strat would be anything less than inventive, unique, and wholly playable. Only one thing gives him pause on the matter: “The dizzying array of Strats coming out of Fender these days is . . . I mean, who can keep track?”
Rick Turner Model 1 Specs
The first Model 1 guitar built for Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham featured the following specifications.
Dimensions
- Scale length: 24 3/4"
- Nut width: 1 11/16"
- Fretboard radius: 12"
- String span at bridge: 2"
- Body: Mahogany
- Neck: Laminated maple and purpleheart set neck with 24 medium-jumbo frets
- Tuners: Schaller M6-A
- Bridge: Copy of Turner’s early-’70s Alembic design built by Stars Guitars
- Knobs: Mouser Electronics Eagle knurled black aluminum Electronics
- Pickup: Rotatable Rick Turner-designed, high-impedance humbucker with ceramic magnets, built by Bartolini
- Controls: Quasi-parametric EQ with hardwire-bypass switch, a 150 Hz–3.5 kHz sweep knob, 12 dB boost/cut knob, and Master Volume and passive Tone knobs
Milkman’s Jerry Garcia-style JG-40 combo.
Grateful Dead-inspired gear from Milkman and Scarlet Fire helps to keep the guitarist’s sound alive.
Guitar players wanting to catch the Grateful Dead’s particular lightning in a bottle exist along a spectrum. Some are content to take inspiration from Jerry Garcia’s playing but make their own way regarding guitar choice and signal path. Others strive to emulate Garcia’s sonic decisions down to the most minor details and create signal paths as close to Jerry’s as possible. In recent years, an ecosystem of gear has developed around fostering Jerry Garcia’s electric tone, including everything from guitars, amps, and stompboxes to on-board preamps and speakers.
Entire books about the Grateful Dead’s gear have been written, so we can’t cover it all here. Garcia tinkered with all facets of his sound from about 1971 until 1978, when his signal path reached stability. By then, his On-Board Effects Loop—an innovation he developed to control how much signal reached his effects—was dialed in, his backline firm, and his choice of effects pedals solidified. Even then, adjustments were made, especially when MIDI arrived or when technology like in-ear monitoring was used. Here are some basics.
Scarlet Fire’s recreation of Garcia’s Wolf, originally built by Doug Irwin.
It starts with guitars. For players wanting to get their Jerry on, there’s a wide range of Garcia-esque instruments—with just as wide a range of prices—out there. Recreations of the Doug Irwin guitars and the Fender Alligator Strat abound. China-built models from companies likePhred Instruments can go for as little as $700 or so. Luthier Thomas Lieber apprenticed with Irwin long ago, and his Lieber Guitars will deliver a copy of a variety of Garcia models. Leo Elliott’sScarlet Fire Guitars out of Dallas, Texas, takes things in another direction. Elliott builds Doug Irwin replicas that start at $20,000 and go up from there, with a current wait time of about 18 months for an instrument. He’s outfitted many of the top Garcia guitarists today, including Tom Hamilton Jr. and Jeff Mattson. Elliott says, “I’m a self-taught luthier; I didn’t really build my first guitar until 2010. I understood a little bit about woodworking before I got started, but I learned by reading books and through trial and error. I started building replicas of Doug Irwin’s Wolf guitar right away, which is sort of like building a car and starting with a Ferrari. I didn’t know any better. Then, eventually I got to know Doug Irwin and collaborated with him. So, I got to hold Garcia’s Tiger guitar and get to know it really well, and by 2015, I had built replicas of that guitar. There’s one guy who helps me around the shop, but otherwise, I am building these guitars on my own. I’m collaborating with Doug Irwin on a new series of Tiger guitars, which will retail for 50 grand each.” That’s one way to get your Jerry going.
The JBL-inspired Milkman K-140.
Garcia’s choice of amplifiers is another matter. He preferred Fender Twin Reverbs loaded with JBL Alnico speakers, which were popular amongst many rock bands in the 1970s. The details get complicated; Garcia’s amps were heavily modified, and the Fender Twin served as a preamp that ran to a McIntosh MC-3500 power amp.
It’s hard to find vintage JBL speakers today—at least ones in good shape. San Francisco’s Milkman Sound, founded by Tim Marcus, has created a faithful reproduction of those classic JBLsthey call the K-140. They’re coupling those speakers with a Garcia-style recreation of his Fender Twin that Marcus named the JG-40. “I think 75 percent of Jerry’s tone is in the JBL speakers,” Milkman’s founder says. “But when you start to analyze the other 25 percent, you kind of have to start withDon Rich. [Editor’s Note: Rich was the guitar player in Buck Owens’ band, pioneers of the Bakersfield Sound.] That’s Jerry’s tone, too, but the difference is Garcia’s midrange was a bit throatier. It sounds clean, but really, it’s not clean at the same time. Especially his tone in the late ’70s. There is something about running that Fender Twin Reverb through the McIntosh that would just completely blow out the tone in a really interesting way.”
Garcia colored his tone with off-the-shelf effects. This was, after all, long before the days of boutique pedals. By 1978 and beyond, you’d hear him playing through an MXR Distortion+, an MXR Analog Delay, and an MXR Phase 100. He often used auto wahs, preferring the Musitronics Mu-Tron envelope filter as well as a Mu-Tron Octave Divider and a Mu-Tron combination volume and wah pedal.
When I asked Jeff Mattson, Bella Rayne, and Tom Hamilton Jr. exactly how orthodox they are about using the kind of gear that Garcia did, I got three different answers.
Mattson tells me that because Dark Star Orchestra is doing something very specific, he really has to tailor his sound as carefully to Garcia’s as he can. “Some folks get too hung up on small things, like what kind of cable to use and things like that, and I don’t go that far. But it’s important for Dark Star Orchestra to get Jerry’s sound right because we are covering different eras and different shows. In 2022, for example, we went to Europe and recreated shows from the Dead’s famous Europe ’72 tour, so you have to pay close attention to what kind of gear they were using to do that right.”
Hamilton works differently. He’s always preferred a higher-gain signal than Garcia ever did, landing in more of a British or heavy metal tone. (Randy Rhoads was a big influence.) “I’ve always approached it like, ‘What’s the new information we can put into this thing?’” he says. “Not just recreate but pushing in a forward direction. And anytime I’ve played with the guys who played with Garcia back in the day, they always said to me, ‘You’re here because you’re here. Don’t try and do what we did back in 1978 or do it because Garcia did it that way.’ They’ve always encouraged me to be myself.”
Bella Rayne is just wrapping her head around what it really means to try to sound like Garcia. “Besides Jerry, I’m influenced by guitarists like Dickey Betts and Derek Trucks, so my tone tends to be a bit heavier and bluesy,” she explains. “I’m generally running a Stratocaster through a Fender Twin Reverb. But recently, I was doing a show, and a buddy of mine set up a Jerry rig for me, and that was so cool: JBL speakers, McIntosh head, the whole setup. I had never played through one. I didn’t know what the hype was all about. I plugged in, and it was just amazing; there was such a snap, and I was really commanding the band. I can see myself keeping my current rig but adding a Dead-rig to experiment. But honestly, anything is fine; I am not picky. I just want to play the best that I can.”
PRS Guitars today launched five new three-pickup, 22-fret models across the S2 and SE series. The S2 Series release includes the S2 Special Semi-Hollow and S2 Studio, while the SE Series welcomes the SE Special Semi-Hollow, SE Studio, and SE Studio Standard.
“The distinctive pickup configurations of these five guitars deliver a versatile tonal platform, whether you’re exploring subtle textures or pushing the envelope. The deep dive into our Narrowfield technology is obvious with this launch. With both the S2 models made in our Maryland factory and the SE models made in Indonesia, our goal has been to create guitars that will inspire you and spark creativity, all at an exceptional value,” said PRS Guitars COO, Jack Higginbotham.
S2 Special Semi-Hollow
The PRS S2 Special Semi-Hollow features a pair of 58/15 LT humbuckers in the bass and treble positions and a PRS Narrowfield in the middle. A 5-way blade switch and two mini-toggles allow players to tap the humbuckers, creating twelve distinct pickup combinations for sonic exploration. The carved maple top and mahogany back encompass a semi-hollow body that adds a natural airiness and depth to the guitar’s tone while enhancing sustain.
S2 Studio
The PRS S2 Studio delivers a wide range of sonic possibilities through its distinctive single-single-hum configuration. Featuring two proprietary PRS Narrowfield pickups in the bass and middle positions and a 58/15 LT humbucker in the treble position, the S2 Studio offers a palette of sounds from single-coil clarity to vocal humbucker tones. This model also has a 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control.
SE Special Semi-Hollow
The PRS SE Special Semi-Hollow is designed with the versatility of a hum/“single”/hum setup, bringing PRS’s Narrowfield DD pickup design to the SE Series in a classic maple-top guitar. The semi-hollow construction also enhances sustain and resonance, while the f-hole adds a classic aesthetic. The coil-tap switching system unlocks a wide range of tones through a pair of 58/15 LT “S” pickups in the bass and treble positions and a PRS Narrowfield DD “S” in the middle.
SE Studio
The PRS SE Studio’s “single”/”single”/hum pickup configuration provides a wide range of tonal options. This combination of PRS Narrowfield DD “S” bass and middle pickups with a PRS 58/15 LT “S” treble humbucker offers humbucking warmth, single-coil sparkle, and everything in between. The 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control further enhance its versatility.
SE Studio Standard
The only bolt-on neck in this release group, the PRS SE Studio Standard brings the tone, playability, and versatility of the Studio model to the SE Series and into an all-mahogany design with a vintage-style pickguard aesthetic. At the heart of the SE Studio Standard is its versatile trio of pickups: an 58/15 LT “S” humbucker in the treble position with two Narrowfield DD “S” pickups in the middle and bass positions. The 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control allow for an array of pickup configurations.
PRS Guitars continues its schedule of launching new products each month in 2025. Stay tuned to see new gear and 40th Anniversary limited-edition guitars throughout the year.
For the first time ever, two guitar greats, John 5 and Richie Kotzen will be heading out on the road this year. The tour will launch October 16 and run through November, hitting markets across the U.S.
Find the full tour itinerary right plus a link for tickets & VIP, including additional dates featuring John 5 only. Reserved seating tickets will go on sale Friday May 16 though a fan presale will begin today at noon local time and fans are strongly encouraged to buy early to get the best seats.
Meet and Greets for both artists will be available. For John 5 please go to: https://john5store.com/collections/vip.
Today, John 5 also announces more details of his anticipated new album. Called The Ghost, it will be released October 10 and is led by the new track “Fiend,” featuring Kenny Aronoff.
John 5 continues running public tours this month for his Knights In Satan’s Service Museum of KISS Memorabilia in Los Angeles, California. Guided tours are open to the public for one month only (with a possible expansion). Current dates available are May 12-16, May 19-23 and May 27-30. Each will be led by John 5 himself who will provide tons of rich detail and answer any questions. Secure your place HERE.
JOHN 5 continues to tour with Mötley Crüe including an upcoming residency in Las Vegas in 2025.RICHIE KOTZEN &
JOHN 5 FALL 2025 TOUR
October 16 El Cajon, CA @ Magnolia
October 17 Riverside, CA @ Fox Performing Arts
October 18 Roseville, CA @ Goldfield Trading Post
October 19 San Jose, CA @ The Ritz
October 21 Phoenix, AZ @ Celebrity Theatre
October 22 Albuquerque, NM @ KiMo Theatre
October 24 Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
October 25 Leander, TX @ The Haute Spot
October 27 New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues
October 28 Memphis, TN @ Minglewood Hall
October 29 Nashville, TN @ Fogg Street Lawn Club
October 30 Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
October 31 Orlando, FL @ House of Blues
November 1 Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Culture Room
November 2 Clearwater, FL @ Capitol Theatre
November 4 Richmond, VA @ The National
November 5 Leesburg, VA @ Tally Ho Theater
November 6 Patchogue, NY @ Patchogue Theatre
November 11 Glenside, PA @ Keswick Theatre
November 12 Derry, NH @ Tupelo Music Hall
November 13 Foxborough, MA @ Six String Grill & Stage
November 14 Stroudsburg, PA @ Sherman Theater
November 15 Lorain, OH @ Lorain Palace Theatre
November 16 Columbus, OH @ The King Of Clubs
November 17 Warrendale, PA @ Jergels
November 19 Wyandotte, MI @ District 142
November 20 Flint, MI @ The Machine Shop
November 21 Fort Wayne, IN @ Piere’s
November 22 St. Charles, IL @ Arcada Theatre
November 23 Belvidere, IL @ Apollo Theatre
November 25 Denver, CO @ Oriental Theater
November 29 Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet's*
*John 5 only
AEROSMITH guitarist and songwriter JOE PERRY is set to return to the road for a series of August performances with THE JOE PERRY PROJECT. The 8-date run kicks off August 13 in Tampa, FL and wraps August 23 in Port Chester, New York, with an August 19 performance in PERRY’s Boston hometown (see the itinerary below). For the North American trek—which marks the first solo shows for PERRY this year—the legendary guitarist will be joined by his Aerosmith bandmates Brad Whitford (guitar) and Buck Johnson (keys), along with The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson (vocals), and Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert DeLeo (bass), and Eric Kretz (drums).
“Well…it’s time to let the music do the talkin again,” PERRY says. “I’m really excited about the JPP line up this year!!!! Most of these guys played with me at The Roxy in L.A. at the debut event for my latest solo album [Sweetzerland Manifesto] in January 2018. They’re all busy as hell but thankfully they’re able to carve out some time for this run. And I’m not only lucky enough to have Brad Whitford onstage with me but Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes! [who sang ‘Fortunate One’ on Sweetzerland Manifesto MKII], Robert DeLeo and Eric Kretz from STP!!! and Buck Johnson who plays keys and sings with Aerosmith, the Hollywood Vampires, and is also a solo artist in his own right.”
For the shows, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee says “the set list is gonna include my fav JPP cuts, STP, Black Crowes, and with Brad we’ll be hitting the Aero hits and some deep cuts and then ya never know!!!! Gonna be a BLAST, and if you’ve ever been to one of my shows you know the words GARAGE BAND on STEROIDS come to mind! See you there!!!!”
DATE | LOCATION | VENUE |
Wednesday, August 13 | Tampa, FL | Seminole Hard Rock - Tampa |
Thursday, August 14 | Hollywood, FL | Seminole Hard Rock - Hollywood |
Saturday, August 16 | Toronto, ON | HISTORY |
Sunday, August 17 | Muskoka, ON | Kee to Bala |
Tuesday, August 19 | Boston, MA | Wang Theatre |
Wednesday, August 20 | Hampton Beach, NH | Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom |
Friday, August 22 | Mashantucket, CT | The Premier Theater at Foxwoods Resort Casino |
Saturday, August 23 | Port Chester, NY | Capitol Theatre |