There are few electric guitars in the history of rock that are more recognisable than Michael Schenker’s 1971 ‘Medallion-era’ Flying V, and now, thanks to the work of the Gibson Custom Shop, there are 50 more of them, with the launch of a Collector’s Edition replica that required 3D scans and Murphy Lab ageing to recreate every detail of the original.
That original is a guitar Kirk Hammett describes as “almost like a religious relic”. When the Metallica lead guitarist was growing up, Schenker’s Flying V was the guitar he wanted.
And he really did put his mind to it; Hammett is now the proud owner the original, and speaking in the coffee-table book documenting his epic arsenal of guitars, The Collection: Kirk Hammett, out now via Gibson Publishing, the Metallica guitarist details how his obsession with all things Schenker led to an obsession with all things Flying V.
Article continues below“It represents so much of my youth and all the travails I went through in just trying to learn how to play guitar and be a great improviser and soloist like Michael Schenker,” he says, in an extract published in the Gibson Gazette. “I spent so much time as a teenager just staring at this guitar on the back of UFO’s Force It album.
“There’s a picture of Michael Schenker playing this very guitar – it’s red, you can see the medallion – and I used to stare at the guitar and go, ‘I need to get a Flying V.’ Little did I know that, decades later, I would have the very Flying V that I was staring at.”
Schenker’s Flying V has been known as this black-and-white custom job for so long now – nearly 50 years – that we often forget that this was a refin. Schenker had one black guitar, one white.
Watching as his tech was repairing holes in the body during a Scorpions rehearsal in 1979, he says he wanted a fresh paint job.
That would become his signature style. But as he explains in the launch video, was the shape of the Flying V, and its initially unwieldy shape, that helped him find his signature sound.
“What I do is all self-expression. I need a bit more volume, distortion and power,” he says. “I developed a certain way with the guitar because of the shape. It was awkward at the beginning but, quickly, I put it between my legs and I realised, ‘Yes, this is solid. It stays here.’ And I was able to use my arm for heavy vibrato. It almost became like part of my body.”
Schenker made full use of the extra purchase. It was little wonder that a coltish Kirk Hammett would be so taken with this muscular style. But there was already evidence to suggest that Schenker was going to be play the instrument hard. He got his first taste of the Flying V when his big brother, Rudolf, bailed him out after he broke a string.
“I was always kind of getting everything secondhand, whatever my brother didn’t use anymore,” he says. “I was about 16 years old. I broke a string at the show, and my brother was playing the V, and I had to take the solo so he quickly gave me his guitar.”
This was a Eureka! moment for the teenager.
“That’s when I noticed there was something about my guitar and the amplifier,” he says. “I was like, ‘Wow!’”
Gibson’s Collector’s Edition replica of Schenker’s ’71 Flying V does not come cheap at £14,899/$16,999, and you can guarantee that they will sell out in no time. But those lucky enough to get their hands on one will have the next best thing to the original. Each has been signed by Schenker. The specs are dead on with his original.
At a certain remove, the black-and-white paint job looks immaculate but upon closer inspection there is noticeable checking in the aged nitrocellulose lacquer. The dings on the headstock are present and correct (and if you play a Flying V, you’ll invariably add some of your own).
It even ships in a replica Michael Schenker Group guitar case, inside which you’ll find a COA (black-and-white of course) and a commemorative medallion. The medallions were originally commissioned to mark the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany.
As befitting the Flying Vs of that era, it is fitted with a pair of T-Top Alnico V humbucking electric guitar pickups, each hand-wired to their own volume and tone controls (500k CTS pots as standard, Switchcraft selector switch and 1/4” jack FTW), with the “knurled white top hat” control knobs a little reminiscent of the skirted dials you’d find on a Fender Stratocaster.
The body and neck are mahogany, the latter a three-piece build, shaped into a “thin artist profile” with a volute, and it is topped with a 12” radius rosewood fingerboard.
You’ll probably find a manual in among the case candy, telling you how to adjust the Tune-O-Matic bridge and access the truss rod via the black-and-white cover heat-stamped with the Gibson logo because this being a smaller Flying V headstock there’s not much room elsewhere.
But really Michael Schenker, particularly his work with UFO, is the only source material any player needs to study when picking up a guitar like this.
Like the great man says, wedge it in between your legs, turn up your guitar amp – perhaps have a cocked wah pedal in front of the amp to let those tonal sweet spots bloom – and then have at it. As he advises, whatever you do, don’t hold back, don't compromise.
“A guitar is the best self-expression tool that one can have,” says Schenker. “I had my own dream. I can go all the way my own way, and that was my mission in life – still is my mission in life – and it is all about pure self-expression.”
For more details on the Michael Schenker 1971 Flying V Collector’s Edition, head over to Gibson.
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