Brian May will forever be associated with the Red Special that he built with his dad in the early 1960s. But, in some alternate timeline where his legendary electric guitar was never assembled, what would May have played?
It’s a head-scratcher, but Planet Rock put the question to him – and May remained on the fence.
“Nothing really worked for me apart from my own one,” he caveats. “It’s odd. I always found the Fenders too thin and scratchy for the sound that I was trying to get.
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“And I found the Gibsons a little bit too much in the other direction: a bit too dark. They didn’t have the crispness and the top-end that I wanted.
“My guitar, partly by design and partly by good luck, sits somewhere in the middle, and it also has a very wide range of tones because of the way I hooked it up and wired up the pickups in series, but in phase and out of phase.
“So it has a very wide range of bright to dark. I only really can get my sound with the guitar that I created with my dad.”
It’s a very diplomatic non-answer, but his early indifference to both Fenders and Gibsons could lead to speculation that he’d look elsewhere for his main six-string squeeze. That said, May has had a healthy share of guitars from both brands over the years.
His 1978 Crazy Little Thing Called Love Telecaster is probably the most notable. He also has a ‘67 Esquire, and occasionally turned to a Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul as a Red Special back-up in Queen’s early days.
Still, they didn’t quite stick. “I only used [the Strat and Les Paul] as spares because I didn’t have a decent copy of my guitar at that time,” May told Guitar Player in 2012. “Neither of them really worked for me, though they work just fine for other people.”
May has an appreciation for both, though, especially Gibson. A few years ago, May signed a surprise partnership with the company, which is said to be working on Murphy Lab recreations of his Red Special. He also recently got a signature 12-string acoustic.
The Red Special, then, has come a long way since its humble origins as a DIY project made from leftover wood hoarded by May’s father.
“It was a piece of somebody’s fireplace that my dad had saved,” May explains of the build to Planet Rock. “We had a spare bedroom and that was his workshop.
“He had lots of bits and pieces from all over – things that might come in handy one day. I still have the rest of the fireplace, so I could actually make another neck from it.” Maybe Gibson can use it for one special Murphy Lab replica?
In related May news, it was recently confirmed the Queen guitarist will feature on William Shatner’s unexpected metal album.
