That's Joe Perry's Blade Runner. An interview below:
The Bladerunner you played in the "Walk This Way" video with Run-D.M.C. is in the Play It Loud exhibit. What is it like to have one of your guitars in the Metropolitan Museum of Art right now?I was really honored to think a guitar I played would have enough gravitas to make it into the Met. There's a thousand great guitar players out there who have contributed to the last 50, 70 years of rock n' roll. To be asked to have even one guitar in that display is a real honor. The guitar I picked -- I'm sure there are plenty of Les Pauls and Stratocasters and those guitars that have played a big part in my career in the studio and on the stage -- but that guitar was in a video that was pretty pivotal.
Zack Whitford
Joe Perry and his Blade Runner Guitar.
We didn't see it was going to be that, we just wanted to go in, have some fun, meet those guys. The music they were making, I saw it as being the next step from blues. It's blues, hip-hop and rock – it's elemental and rhythm-oriented and the lyrics are talking about day-to-day stuff. To me it was a very logical leap from the blues to hip-hop and rap. And then to work with the guys who were right on the cutting edge of it was exciting to us. We got the phone call from Rick Rubin. They were a little skeptical about it, I know they were using some tracks of ours just as they were using other rock tracks – Zeppelin, whatever – to create their beats. But it was another thing to cover a song by a hard rock band. Rick Rubin had said in an interview a couple months before that he thought "Walk This Way" was proto rap. And we were like, "wow, okay, thank you." We never thought about it like that, but I guess you could see that. And when we got the phone call it wasn't totally out of the blue, but it was "well let's try it, we'll see." They didn't even know if they were gonna put it on the record. "Let's go into the studio and see what comes from it." I brought my guitar, we put some stuff down, and Rick said, "You know, we should really get some bass." And I said, "I can play bass on it, I just need a bass." And one of the cats who was hanging out said "I got one back at my apartment." He went back to get it, and it was one of the Beastie Boys, because they were hanging out with Rick and watching what was going on. So I used his bass, put it on the track and that was it, it was fun. We went back on the road and got a phone call not too much later -- "well we really like the song and want to do the video." I figured, again, this is not supposed to be just us [in the video], but any garage band, any rock band, to signify that's what's on one side of the wall. I figured at that point in rock n' roll, some of the most popular guitars were the pointy guitars, and the Bladerunner, you couldn't get any farther away from the classic Les Paul or Stratocaster look. It's got holes in it! It's oddly shaped. Oddly enough, it's a good guitar to play. It's fun to play, once in a while I take it out and use it in the studio. But visually, it's a statement.
When was the last time you played a Bladerunner on stage?
I think I might've pulled it out on the last tour. It's a little different sound than what I usually like, but it's got a good neck on it, it's a well-built guitar. I actually went online and I couldn't find one. I don't know how many they made; the guy who gave it to me from the Guild said it was a prototype. I had another one duplicated from a guitar-maker friend of mine, so I have two, just in case something happens to the original. They're very rare, I don't know how many they made actually.
walrus