Any ideas when the picture of Rogers trashed drum kit on the cover of The Lot was taken.Also i don't think this was a regular thing in the show,any ideas what caused it?Had Roger had a bad show or something?
The photo was taken by Neal Preston on the U.S Tour in 1978 during God Save The Queen. Not sure of the date but probably New York or L.A. RT trashed his kit at least once on every tour from 1974.
Yeah what it is to be in a successful band at that level.
During a ten day period of Nine Inch Nails Mr Self Distruct tour they wrecked 30 thousand dollars worth of keyboards and guitars which were replaced at no expense to the band
So Roger used to kick his kit around,John threw his bass at Knebworth and Freddie liked to smash microphones and speakers during Sheer Heart Atttack.Has Brian any history of smashing guitars ?His beloved Red Special was never in any danger!!
The only time I was aware of Brian trashing a guitar was when he threw his Birch RS over the back line, in 1982, breaking the headstock off and breaking the neck. He replaced it for the rest of the tour with a Gibson Flying V
^ he actually already had the Flying V as his spare on that tour to begin with. The night he smashed the Birch copy, there was a Flying V waiting for him ! link
Think brian said the insodent at east rutherford 9th was just down to sheer frustrasion at the tuning problems the birch had a d very unlike him. When I wrote to brian I asked him what became of the birch replica. he told me the pieces where sent to the guild factory in the states. Must have been what they copied from.
I think, dare I say it, that Brian's memory of the John Birch guitar is somewhat cloudy. It was a long time ago. He gave the guitar to John Page of Fender guitars, who at the time were going to build a BM model. John Page took measurements of the Birch guitar and started work on a prototype but Fender dropped the idea and the broken Birch and started Prototype were left in John Pages work shop for years. The guitar never went to guild.
John Page was contacted about five or six years back regarding the Birch guitar and Fender prototype. The proptype and possibly the plans were sent to Everet Wood at RS Custom Guitars who did a total rebuild of the Page Prototype, very little existed, and then marketed it as the John Page prototype.
The Broken John Birch was sent to Andrew Guyton (Guyton Guitars) who put it back together and restored it to playing condition.
Andrew was asked to restore the Birch RS so that the 'battle scars' could still be seen... i.e. the cracks in the neck where it was repaired. Apparently Brian wanted to have a record of the event!
Interestingly, much of the gold paint (sprayed on the back) has oxidised and turned green; if you look carefully in the WWRY video you can start to see the beginnings of it. It plays and sounds great!
Its a beautiful guitar. I know brians memory is somewhat sketchy about certain things and to be honest after I got the letter iheard so many versions of what happend to that guitar and I always took bris word as gospel. But he has got a habit of contradicting himself as I have since discoverd. But lets face it the guys got a hell of a lot of past to remember.
Thanks for the info guys