What Cesar Gueikian is doing is highly unusual. It is not unheard of for a guitar maker to migrate to the boardroom and take on an executive role. But the Gibson CEO is moving in the opposite direction.
Every week, typically on a Friday morning, he clears some precious calendar time, puts on a pair of safety glasses, and gets hands on in the Gibson factory, and with a little help from his team, he builds an electric guitar that he designed to his one-of-one custom specs – and he has been doing this for nigh-on four years now.
“Definitely, my favourite time of the week is when I am in the factory building,” he says, joining MusicRadar over Zoom from his Nashville HQ.
Gueikian has been playing the guitar since he was 10 years old, but it was only after he became Gibson CEO that he decided that it was time to learn how to make one from scratch.
“I had tinkered anchored with them, changed things, opened [them] up, changed parts and things like that,” he says. “But I had never built one.”
If you have been following Gueikian on Instagram, you will have seen his handiwork. If you caught Metallica’s set at Black Sabbath’s farewell show at Villa Park in July, you will have seen and heard it in action.
Metallica’s lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett, played CEO#4, an custom SG, during a cover of Sabbath’s Hole In The Sky – and that guitar, along with CEO#8, a custom Flying V that Gueikian himself played onstage with Mana, are going under the hammer at Julien’s Auctions, alongside a trove of artist-played and signed guitars. All proceeds from the auction of CEO#4 and CEO#8 be going to support Gibson’s charitable arm, Gibson Gives.
The question is why did he decide to build the instruments himself, what has he learned from working alongside Gibson’s master luthiers, Jim DeCola and Tom Murphy, and their teams, and will we ever see a Cesar Gueikian signature guitar? Here’s his take on it…
What was the first guitar you built at Gibson?
“The first one was actually a Les Paul Standard that I built maybe a little bit over three years ago, three and a half years ago or so. That was a Les Paul Standard, a purple-looking quilt top Les Paul Standard [with] almost like a velvet looking top. That’s what I was going for.
“I remember I started it in September, and I finished it in December. It’s going to be four years ago almost. That was the first one and it was a big learning process.
“I mean, that one was really difficult to make and it has several cosmetic flaws. It plays well. And that one I called CEO#0, and then from there on, CO#1, et cetera. Some of them have been auctioned.”
Why did you start building your own?
What at the beginning was, ‘I want the guitar that I built,’ it’s no longer about the guitar. It’s about spending time in the craftory, working with my team, learning from them, having them teach me
“My intention, originally, was I wanted to learn how to build a guitar from the beginning to end, and then have it, because I wanted that finished product.
“And during the process, between September and December, building with the help of all of our craftsmen and craftswomen in the factory – and we call them craftories, I labelled our factories craftories from the very beginning because I couldn’t get my head around the name factory – you know what? What I really enjoyed was learning from them, and putting myself in a vulnerable situation and having the team in the craftory teach me how to do something. That was my favourite thing.
“And so, since then, what at the beginning was, ‘I want the guitar that I built’ is no longer about the guitar. It’s about spending time in the craftory, working with my team, learning from them, having them teach me.”
“I really, really enjoy that, and it’s been one of the most powerful moments, I think, for me as a leader, for lack of a better word, at Gibson. I realised that you can talk, you can say and do things, and you can inspire people, but this was the most powerful one in terms of my craftsmen and craftswomen, because I feel like I earned a different level of respect from them. It was ultimately a process that taught me a lesson in leadership.”
It was ultimately a process that taught me a lesson in leadership
And like you say, it’s humbling to put yourself out there. These CEO builds are getting more and more ambitious…
“They get more ambitious, yes! Yeah, one thing I was going to tell you about the first one… I worked all those months. We give time off to where people between Christmas and New Year’s. They get time off. But I happen to be in Nashville then, so with Jim DeCola, my master luthier, him and I went to a craftory between Christmas and New Year’s. It was just the two of us. And I finished buffing it and I was going to assemble it that day.
“I finished. It took me about three hours to buff the guitar, which probably takes the team members there about 15 minutes for a guitar. It took me three hours. And that was done.
“Then I noticed a little something, a little orange peel from the lacquer on the headstock, and when I put the headstock on the buffing wheel, it threw it out of my hands, and in a fraction of a second, it was on the floor with the broken headstock. That day I learned how to fix a broken headstock.”
I was going to ask if you had Jim DeCola on speed dial for this. We’re concerned for his work/life balance here.
“He taught me how to fix the headstock. We fixed the headstock, and then I assembled it – later, of course, because we had to then do retouches with more lacquer on it. And I [still] have that guitar. That guitar is with me, and that’s the only one I keep. The rest, everything after that, has been auctioned off, has been sold, proceeds to the foundation, or will be auctioned off soon.”
Talking about the builds getting more ambitious, have you attempted a Murphy Lab Custom Shop build – or what about a semi-hollow electric like an ES-335?
“Yes! In my office here, I just got it today, [and] I just finished a Murphy Lab Les Paul. I worked with Tom [Murphy]. I was working with Tom on his desk, and I can’t remember if it was four or five days working on the ageing, and I just completed that one. I will be doing more Custom Shop Murphy Labs.”
I want to get onto CEO#4, because it’s seems right that someone has put an SG into Kirk Hammett’s hands, especially given that he’s almost playing through Angus Young’s rig on the last Metallica album, with the SoloDallas boost and the Marshalls.
“He has a ’61 Les Paul, the one that’s on the cover of the record – the white one, the two pickup white SG-shape Les Paul that belonged to Les Paul. He owns that guitar.”
I feel like he should be such a natural SG player. Did you have Kirk in mind when you made it?
“Well Kirk and I talk all the time, at least weekly, so we knew that the show Back To The Beginning was on – before it was announced – when I started building it, so I had that show in mind with this SG. And I will walk you through the specs in a second but I did have that show in mind.”
“I knew that somebody from the artists that we work with was probably going to be interested in playing it, and it was more sort of natural, because I speak with Kirk regularly, we are very good friends, we talk about guitars, we talk about shows, when we are going to see each other, when we are going to have dinner, and just in conversation with him, I brought it up.
“He was the first one I brought it up with, said, ‘Hey, this is what I am building and I think it’s going to be great if someone uses this at Back To The Beginning. Would you like to be the one?’ He said, ‘Yes, I’m in. I definitely want to do that.’ I sent him the picture when I finished it, and he was very excited. So that’s how that happened.”
What were you thinking with regards the specs?
“I wanted to build something that would have a bit of a hybrid sound between an SG and a Les Paul, so I used maple, so a mahogany and maple body, with a highly figured maple top. And I’ve always loved the… They’re not called this but I call them Super 400 inlays.
I love the the headstock of the Les Paul Custom with the split diamond. That has always been my one of my favourite Gibson looks
“We use them also on the Supremes, and they've been used in many other acoustic instruments as well, acoustic Gibsons. So it’s those inlays. And I love the the headstock of the Les Paul Custom with the split diamond. That has always been my one of my favourite Gibson looks, and so that’s what I decided to do – have a bound fingerboard with the Super 400 inlays, and a bound Gibson Les Paul Custom-style headstock.
“For the hardware, I went with not fully black but slightly darker hardware, and I used pretty high-output ‘80s-style Gibson pickups, which are the same pickups that we use on the 80s Explorers and Flying Vs. They’re a modified version of Burstbuckers, still passive, but higher output. So you have the Burstbuckers, the ‘70s pickups which are little bit hotter, and then the ‘80s pickups that are a little bit hotter so I went ‘80s, overwound.”
And we have to talk about the finish, the Ghost Burst.
When I went to execute on it with a spray gun, I went in a little more than I wanted, and so a CEO4 has that look. Now with more practice, #8 and #9 are very much perimeter bursts, which is how I envisioned it
“Well, how that happened, I also talked to another dear friend of mine, Adam Jones from Tool, and I sent him the picture of the finish – of the guitar already finished – because I knew he would like the finish, and he replied immediately saying, ‘I love that finish! It looks like a ghost burst.’ And so I told him, ‘That’s the name. I love it. You named it.' And that’s what we call it.”
We also see this finish on CEO#8.
“When I did #8 and #9, that’s the Flying V and an Explorer [respectively], I did them based on the same finish. Now, CEO#4, I wanted it to be a perimeter burst, so it was very much on the perimeter, but I didn’t do it the way I wanted.
“I mean, I had something in my head, and when I went to execute on it with a spray gun, I went in a little more than I wanted, and so a CEO#4 has that look. Now with more practice, #8 and #9 are very much perimeter bursts, which is how I envisioned it.
“And so we’re going to be releasing this finish next year, and they’re gonna look a little bit more like CEO#8 and #9.”
You anticipated my next question. Because this is also a great testing ground for new products, what you could add to the Made To Measure programme and so on.
“Yeah, we are going to be releasing several models, different shapes with the Ghost Burst finish. I don’t know exactly when. It might late summer of next year. But, yeah, I’m excited about making them available because we’ve had a lot of comments from people saying, ‘Please release this finish.’ People seem to have liked it.”
It’s a great finish. How did you feel when you saw Kirk Hammett, with Metallica, playing a Black Sabbath cover with this guitar? It must have been mind-blowing?
I picked up a guitar because I heard Black Sabbath when I was 10 years old
“I guess there are many reasons why the answer to that question is yes. First, because of Kirk; he’s like a brother to me now. We’re really close. I love him. I really, truly love the human being that he is. He’s such a kind, amazing person.
“So, beyond all of his musical accomplishments, to have him who is, obviously, the lead guitarist of Metallica, with everything that he and Metallica have accomplished, but also such a close friend of mine, play it, but then also that he played it at Back To The Beginning, which is the tribute to Black Sabbath, where everything started, and paying tribute as a result of that to Tony Iommi, who is the reason why I play guitar.
“I picked up a guitar because I heard Black Sabbath when I was 10 years old. So, all of that coming together, the guitar that I built with the help of all of my staff, in Kirk’s hands for Hole In The Sky, Metallica’s song on the set, paying tribute to Tony and Ozzy, and Black Sabbath, everything was amazing and strange, humbling and epic.”
These guitars are going up for auction, CEO#4 and CEO#8. How much to you think they will fetch?
“I have no idea. Honestly, I don’t know what this will get. I hope it raises a lot of funds for the foundation. One hundred per cent of what we get out for this will go out.
“I really hope that, because of everything that we just talked about – the historic moment, Kirk, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Back To The Beginning, the fact that I built a guitar – I hope that because of all of that this becomes a highly coveted, highly bid guitar in the auction. I hope it’s the one that raises the most of all of the CEO builds. [currently it is sitting at $17,500]”
It almost feels like, like we’re kind of building up to the point where you might have a signature model in the Gibson collection. Is that something that you would be interested in?
“I don’t know. I don’t think I will do a signature model, but the ones that we’re going to be releasing are going to be based on these guitars that I built, with these features, in the Ghost Burst finish, and so I guess it’s not a signature model, but they are built on the basis of the specs of what I did.”
It’s like you are caretaker of that series almost, because we can see your design aesthetic running through them.
“I didn’t want to name them the Cesar line or CEO line. So what we agreed with the team is that we’re going to call them DES, which is what I love on everything, which is ‘Do epic shit.’ So they’re gonna be the DES collection. And then that, one day, if it keeps going and it keeps growing based on other things that I build, hopefully it will outlast me.”
- For more information on the Gibson Gives auction, which sees CEO#4 and CEO#8 go under the hammer, head over to Julien's Auctions
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