Jackson Adrian Smith San Dimas DK
86 Guitarist July 2009
JACKSON/FENDER IRON MAIDEN SIGNATURES
£1,139-£1,799
ELECTRICS/baSS
Jackson/Fender
Iron Maiden signatures
£1,139-£1,799
W
e’ve been itching to
get our hands on
these babies for many
months now and the timing
couldn’t be better: we’re
writing this review on official
Iron Maiden Day!
As a band, Maiden were
honoured with a Fender Strat
back in 2001 (reviewed in issue
213) but these new axes mark
the first occasion that any
specific member of the six-
string fusillade has been given
a signature model.
Although a Dave Murray
Strat has been sporadically
available via Fender Japan for
a while now (the HST-57DM),
this new US-built model –
based on Murray’s original
guitar that, in turn, was
previously owned by Paul
Kossoff – is on sale across the
globe. Also issued by Fender is a
new version of the Iron Maiden
P-bass, which now bears the
squiggle of four-string main
man Steve Harris. Meanwhile
Jackson – now part of the
Fender family, of course – has
also released an Adrian Smith
Signature Dinky.
In effect, all three guitars
hark back to the instruments
used by the respective members
on 1987’s Somewhere In Time
tour and, although none of
them are intended as a strict
replica model, the spec, look
and, most importantly, vibe and
tone is designed to be close to
the guitars on which some
great rock music was played.
Jackson Adrian Smith
San Dimas DK
We managed to grab a couple of
minutes with Adrian on the eve
of the final date of the band’s
recent tour to ask him what sort
of input he had with this new
Jackson model?
“When I heard they were
going to build one, I said okay
but send me one to try out. They
did that and I really liked it
straight away: this was the
ebony fingerboard model. Later
I tried the maple neck model,
but the neck was too fat, so they
modified that to my liking.”
And how did the original
model come into being? “Grover
Jackson came to a lot of the
shows with different prototype
guitars for me to try. I had a
fifties Fender Strat that I liked,
so he took measurements from
that and it formed the basis for
the [signature] model.”
The example we have here is
slightly different from Smith’s
original, but only in that it
features an ebony, rather than
maple, fingerboard and a white
instead of black pickguard – the
remainder of the spec and feel is
the same as its virtual opposite.
One important difference in
spec concerns the pickups. The
configuration of Smith’s
original was h/s/h, while the
2009 model comes loaded with
two Fender Samarium-Cobalt-
Noiseless (SCN) single-coils to
work with a now-classic
DiMarzio Super Distortion in
the bridge.
How do they differ from
the previous models?
The 2001 Japanese
Fender Iron Maiden Strat
bore little resemblance
to models played by the
band, with a mirrored
pickguard and Seymour
Duncan pickups. But the
P-bass was much closer
to Harris’ original.
Did the band members
have any input?
These aren’t tribute
models, so don’t expect
exact recreations, but
Adrian Smith did give us
some insight into his
Jackson. Murray’s Strat
featured on Maiden’s
first five albums, so it’s
an iconic instrument.
One question we’re not
going to ask is where the
Janick Gers model is…
Are they only designed
for rock and metal use?
Since when have Strats
and P-Basses been only
for rock and metal? The
guitars’ hot pickups work
well in those styles but
there’s plenty more on
offer besides.
1
2
3
What we
want to know
The Jackson’s maple and ebony neck
– with 22 huge frets and a conical
radius – is a rock player’s dream
The Floyd Rose is just what Adrian needs for those famous dive-bombs
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GIT317.rev_fender 86 20/5/09 6:12:46 pm