Guild Surfliner Solidbody Electric Guitar - White Sage

In 2022, the Guild Surfliner became the company’s first new solidbody guitar design in decades, entering the heated offset-body sales sweepstakes. Now, the historic brand has upped their game with the Guild Surfliner Deluxe, a slightly more expensive update. It’s priced at $699 street, versus $499 for the original Surfliner and the aged model, which come in 3-pickup or HH configurations. PG’S John Bohlinger has a blast playing this demo, opening with a variation of the Beatles “Come Together” before detailing the signal chain he’s using: his “modest pedalboard” and his ’64 Fender Vibroverb, miked with a Sennheiser e 906.

The Deluxe model takes things up a notch with a new Guild floating vibrato tailpiece, a roasted maple neck with a bound rosewood fretboard and block inlays, a 5-way blade switch, locking tuners, and a matching headstock. Bohlinger digs in with a dry, clean tone (playing one of his favorite demo tunes, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Lenny”) at first, from the neck pickup, and moves through all five positions. Note the whammy bar’s fluid motion on this HSS variation. Next up: a dirt box with a healthy helping of delay—featuring a bit of the James Gang’s “Funk #49” on tap. By the way, this instrument comes in three finish options: evergreen, rose quartz, and black metallic. After the black HSS, John grabs an HH variation in rose quartz, with individual on/off switches and a maple fretboard and headstock. A little cocktail blues anyone? And then, with the addition of a slide and an overdrive pedal, well … the sky is crying somewhere.

Both pickups get a workout before John moves on to the hardtail HSS standard model, which features a Guild LB-1 mini-humbucker and two DeArmond Aerosonic single-coils. It also comes with three rocker switches, which allows for all the pickup combinations—including John’s favorite: all three at once. As JB’s demo proves, the new Guild Surfliner Deluxe is a versatile instrument with plenty of sonic options, no stylistic limitations, and a price and build that’ll serve any working player.