TRACII GUNS: ELECTRIC GYPSY
“WHEN IT CAME to doing a signature guitar, there was no point in doing something ordinary, you know what I mean?” Tracii Guns says. To be sure, even a cursory glimpse at the L.A. Guns guitarist’s new Kramer Gunstar Voyager confirms that, yes, we know exactly what he means.
From the star-shaped Voyager body, to the custom flame finish, to the classic-era pointy headstock with Kramer “pyramid” logo (“I wanted that really gnarly headstock where you can poke a vulture’s eye out with it”), there’s certainly nothing ordinary about the Gunstar Voyager. It’s a supremely modern metal machine that also exudes a cool throwback vibe. “It has this Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Dimebag-y appeal about it,” Guns says.
And that’s just what he was intending in designing the instrument. Because while Guns is an incredibly versatile player, he also acknowledges that “the bulk of my fans are fans of Eighties metal guitar. They want teeth and they want shredding. They want big, ringing open G chords and they want whammy bar dives. And this guitar can deliver all of that.”
Indeed it can. Boasting a mahogany body, three-piece, slim C-shaped maple neck, 22-fret maple fingerboard and deep cutaway for easy high-register access, the Gunstar Voyager provides speed, comfort and clear, full-bodied resonance before you even plug it in. Paired with a high-gain head or combo, the guitar comes alive via a pair of Epiphone ProBuckers, which deliver plenty of aggressive cut via the bridge ’bucker and a healthy dose of rounded, bluesy tones at the neck position. What’s more, the guitar is fitted with a Floyd Rose 1000 Series Tremolo to fulfill any player’s deepest dive-bombing desires. “We went with the two-way, so you can pull back on it, which I hadn’t done in years,” Guns says. “When I started using it live, I immediately went, ‘Ah, this is great!’ ”
But like Guns himself, there’s much more to the Gunstar Voyager than just being a primo shred machine. “The idea was to have kind of a cross between, like, a Les Paul Custom or an Explorer with a hot rod guitar,” he says. Which means that in addition to the shred-ready features and graphics, the Gunstar Voyager also boasts a set neck, a rhythm pickup (“I didn’t want to just do a single-hum guitar — it wouldn’t be practical for me”) and a wealth of tonal options.
For starters, there are those ProBuckers, which Guns says are low-output enough to allow the amplifier to do the talking. “The guitar sounds pretty much uncolored,” he says. “And when I hit the distortion, you can hear all the high strings when you play a big chord, and you get a lot of bite and clarity.” What’s more, each pickup has its own volume control fitted with a coil-splitting push-pull option for even more tonal flexibility. “So it’s a serious instrument. Plus, it’s so fun to play… and it looks cool in pictures!”
Guns has already been putting the Gunstar Voyager to good use onstage — “it’s really designed for [L.A. Guns] songs like ‘Electric Gypsy’ and ‘Speed,’ where the brightness of the guitar just makes it more ‘metal,’ ” he says.
At the same time, Guns continues, “it’s the nicest hot rod instrument I’ve ever had. It’s just everything I want and need in that type of guitar, and it sits proudly next to my really well-made Les Pauls. So we achieved the goal, you know? We definitely achieved the goal.”
ruptcy to Gibson. And while Kramer’s new owner didn’t do much with the brand over the subsequent two decades, with the resuscitation of Gibson in 2018 and the arrival of Gueikian and new CEO and President James “JC” Curleigh, Kramer, like all Gibson brands, has been experiencing a renaissance.
“Our objective is to reestablish Kramer as the leading guitar for this type of playing,” Gueikian says. “Our brand statement is ‘Made to Rock Hard,’ and that’s not something we just came up with. I was looking at old marketing materials from back in the day and it was right there. So that’s what Kramer was, and that’s what Kramer still is. We don’t need to reinvent what the brand is all about.”
As Gueikian and Gilley are quick to point out, another thing that Kramer “is all about” is an adventurous approach to guitar design. These are guitars that were originally built to appeal to players on the more extreme end of the sixstring spectrum, and with that history comes a certain freedom.
“Whereas Gibson has more of a cherished classic legacy, Kramer has its own unique personality that’s a little more wild,” Gilley says. “And we can take that into the finishes, into the body shapes, into the components. I know that’s something that’s such a joy for our product-development team — they can ask things like, ‘What are some of the custom graphic wraps that are iconic from the Eighties that we can make into cherished models today?’ We can bring that into the modern era and have fun with it.”
Adds Gueikian, “Suddenly you’re saying, ‘what we can do with this brand is unbelievable.’ And that is the mission — to make it unbelievable. So the plan is to have a nice balance between Original and Modern collection guitars, and eventually between both USA-made collections and overseas-made collections, so that we can touch every price point for every type of player, from the ones who loved Kramer back in the Eighties to the kids today that want to learn more about the history and the legacy of these instruments.
“And if those kids decide to try out a Kramer, and they take it home and plug it in and their parents end up telling them to turn it down? Then we know we’ve had success.”