Best Guitar For Punk
Trying to buy the best punk guitar for your money, but aren’t exactly sure what to look for? Our crew explain exactly what you should be checking for and how much money you should expect to pay.
Make sure you continue reading to find out what the guitar shops don’t want you to know about buying guitars.
Best Guitar For Punk Buyer’s Guide
Many musicians claim that punk is a joke, and not to be taken seriously, but think of some of the great punk anthems and they all have one thing in common, a strong guitar riff keeping the tune together. The punk movement was just the rock and roll movement 30 years later on. Gone was the established formula for music, but in were the new musical geniuses with their own interpretation of modern music.
Solid Bodies
Many Punk guitarists play solid bodied guitars these of course cause less feedback, Images of Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols Joe Strummer and Mick Jones from the Clash and many more spring to mind. All solid guitarists in more ways than one. That’s not to say the semi-hollow bodied guitars never make an appearance. Including Epiphone ES-335 but the majority of guitars featured within the punk genre include
- Gibson Les Paul Jr
- Reverend Super Rev
- Squier Affinity Series Jazzmaster HH
- Gibson SG Tribute
- Fender Lead II
- Fender Duo Sonic HS
- Danelectro ’59XT
- Fender Player Telecaster
To name just a few.
Well looked After Guitars
The misinformation that all punks played battered old guitars was all part of the image they tried to portray. The reality was and is these guys can play their guitars and so they look after them. How they could afford a guitar with a £2000 price tag given the image they portrayed is one of life’s mysteries.
The Gibson love affair continued as many punk guitarists also played Gibson SGs and the Les Paul Junior which only used one pickup, a single Gibson P-90. This preference carried on way into the 90s and beyond,
With guitarists like Mick Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong. Billie Joe (the frontman with Greenday) Is a surprisingly good guitarist
Low Actions
To play the guitar at speed, you need a low action. With sensitive strings so that the sound is picked up straight away.
Feed Back
Some punk tunes would not exist without feedback. So that means hollow bodied guitars, cranked up high. Not just feedback, but distortion too. Playing power chords through some heavy distortion and you’re more than halfway to being a punk guitarist.
Pick Ups
Most of the early punk sound was achieved using humbucker pickups.Which is kind of ironic as humbuckers are known to reduce feedback. But the humbucker can tolerate far more distortion
Attitude
Punk is all about fast loud playing, with an aggressive attitude. The volume and the distortion can be manually controlled by the aggressive playing you will need to practice.
Frequently Asked Questions
When punk first emerged, many of the guitarists were just starting out playing. So their tunes were often easy to learn. But as punk has grown, so has the skill level of the guitarists playing. So it has become much more intricate.
Many early punk songs are easy to play on guitar, concentrate on power chords and simple little riffs. As the genre progressed it has become much more difficult to play.
