BRIAN MAY’S RED SPECIAL

THE AXE

With the aide of his father, Brian May built the Red Special himself over the course of two years, starting in August ’63 with a neck chiseled out from a piece of fireplace mantle that he nabbed from a family friend. Topped off with an oak fingerboard and mother-of-pearl inlays, May settled on a chunk of blockboard (a compound wood made of softwood strips sandwiched between two sheets of plywood) for the body, with oak inserts from an abandoned table. He and May Sr. gave it mahogany marquetry veneer for a little aesthetic boost, then went to town on the tech with three single-coil Burns Tri-Sonic pickups and a custom aluminium bridge. An early model of the Red Special featured an inbuilt distortion circuit, which May ripped from a Vox-branded effects unit. But, once he’d reckoned with the sonic weight of an AC30 ripping at full power, he decided to ditch the circuit after all.

THE STORY Though it’s Freddie Mercury’s voice that most note as their defining superpower, Brian May was the real king of Queen: his fretwork – often soaring, occasionally savage, always sensational – was (and is) second-tonone, and it’s largely thanks to the Red Special that he was able to establish a signature sound unlike any of his peers. May built the first edition Red Special out of scrap parts (like, for the tremolo system, an old steel knife and two motorbike valve springs) when he was unable to afford a name-brand axe. May would go on to use a wealth of high-quality rebuilds as Queen skyrocketed in fame, but the original, handmade Red Special still has a place in his arsenal to this day. And by gum, it sounds as rockin’ as ever!

THE REPLICA

May’s own brand (Brian May Guitars, naturally) offers a few variations of Red Special replicas – most notably the BMG Special, which is a phenomenal mid-tier recreation of the OG axe at a player-friendly price point. Then there’s the BMG Super, which is a good squeeze more expensive, but represents a truly authentic recreation of the

Red Special in its most specced-up form. Aiming to bridge the gap between the BMG Special and the handmade instruments lovingly crafted by Andrew Guyton, the Super will run you close to $10,000 aftermarket – but, for that classic Queen tone and a visual feast unlike any other guitar you’ll ever encounter, you really can’t put a price on it. Otherwise, the standard BMG Special runs at an average price around $2,000.