”Those guitars don’t need to be disturbed”: Joe Bonamassa explains why most of his guitar collection never gets played live or used in the studio
Joe Bonamassa has explained why the majority of his vast Nerdville guitar collection doesn’t get studio time or taken on the road.
Asked how many instruments he owns in a new interview with My Weekly Mixtape, the 47-year-old bluesman says: “I think the amount of guitars has surpassed 650.”
READ MORE: “I don’t have many years left in this thing”: Joe Bonamassa hints at retirement
Bonamassa goes on to describe his extensive collection, calling the majority of it “museum-grade”, “meaning that it’s completely unmodified, completely in mint condition. With no changes whatsoever.”
“Some guitars even have the original strings,” he continues. “Now, those guitars don’t need to be disturbed and beat up for anything, but I have stuff that I do play. You know the stuff that’s on the road, and it’s on, you know I play that. And then there’s also the stuff that isn’t in mint condition that you just go, you just grab it, and you’re like this is, this is gonna be killer and it sounds great, and it plays well.”
Bonamassa explains why he owns so many instruments that he has no desire to play. He reasons, “If you’re just a collector of things then you want to buy the cleanest, most original example of whatever you’re collecting, because that will always hold a value. If you’re a player, you don’t want to drive a race car with bad tires.
“So yeah, I have to toe the line. I can’t just go ‘I’m a collector,’ and never play any of it. So I have to have some of it that is modded…or not modded, but just, you know, maintained, meaning that there’s new frets on it, and you know everything works.”
No stranger to exorbitant musical collections, Bonamassa revealed in June that his 1,000-item-strong home museum of gear, which he calls Nerdville, nearly caught fire. “I was up in Oakland, we’d just started a tour,” he remembered. “That night I get a call at 2am from my neighbour. He [sent] a video going, ‘Don’t worry, I got you, the fire department’s here.’”
He added, “It was during the windy season and the dry season, where that shit should’ve swept right up the side [of Nerdville] and took the whole thing out.
“The fire guy runs up and he sees the Nerdville sign and he goes, ‘Oh shit, I know who this is. I’m seeing him in Vegas on Friday!’ So, he puts out the fire and he comes to Vegas and I met him.”
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