Jackson and Phil Demmel of Machine Head and Vio-lence fame have renewed their long-standing partnership with a limited edition King V signature guitar that pays tribute to one of Demmel’s heroes and the player who put Jackson on the map, Randy Rhoads.
The Pro Series Phil Demmel KV King V might swap the asymmetric profile of the late Ozzy Osbourne guitarist’s iconic Rhoads model, but it dresses it up in a finish that will be forever associated with him – albeit on his Sandoval custom V, not the Jackson.
That’s right, we’ve got black-and-white polka dots on a gloss finish here, with bonus points for style because they continue all the way up the neck, too. As Demmel notes, it might remind some people of a previous collab.
“Going back to the King V with Jackson, I have always been a King V guy,” he says. “The departure into the [Demmelition] Fury was super cool. Creating the [Jackson] tribute to Randy Rhoads with the polka dots back in 2009 was something special, so it’s nice to pay homage with this limited series.”
In the introduction video, Demmel shares how he got into playing Jackson guitars. It was the ‘80s. It was a different time. Jackson was a young guitar brand. Demmel was a young thrasher cutting his teeth, and the circles he moved in weren’t exactly good clean-cut kids like the Waltons.
“My first Jackson, I got by some sketchy means,” laughs Demmel. “It was the Randy model, it was the first Randy Rhoads model, the white one, and there was one available.”
That availability involved a trade. There might have been some money owed to someone over some pot, and whatever the upshot was, Demmel had this Rhoads, was playing it live at a sold-out show with Vio-lence, when the original owner had the police come to the show and grab it off him. Demmel’s father was a police officer. He showed up.
It was a drama but no big deal. This was the Oakland thrash metal scene; you had to expect something like this might happen. The band played on. Demmel would join them in a few minutes. “I stagedive, get back on, grab a guitar, and finish the set,” says Demmel. “I got a new [Jackson] right after that.”
That is his black Rhoads with the Raiders sticker on it, which you might recognise from his tours of duty with Vio-lence, Machine Head et al. Heck, Demmel even played some dates with Slayer when Gary Holt was unavailable. “The Jackson name and model has been as part of my DNA over these years,” says Demmel. “I’ve been playing Jackson since 1983/’84.”
As for the new King V, this limited edition model is on the money as far as Demmel’s spec preferences go. “I love the mahogany body, a little heavier, but sustain for days,” says Demmel. “It’s perfect.”
That mahogany body has a maple neck-through build, with that neck whittled down to a super-quick profile and topped with a 12” to 16” compound radius ebony fingerboard. Thin as it might be, the three-piece neck is super-tough, reinforced with carbon rods.
As a long-time Jackson player, Demmel knows which side is up, so of course he has six-in-line headstock, where the polka-dot finish matches the body, plus the pearloid sharkfin inlays, with 24 jumbo frets as standard. This is a 2025 model but its steeped in Jackson history.
As per all Pro Series Jackson guitars, we have Luminlay glow-in-the-dark side markers to aid navigation in low light settings. There’s a 1000 Series Floyd Rose double-locking vibrato, recessed into the body for a lower profile, and it will surprise literally no long-time fans of Demmel’s work to learn that he has an EMG 81 at the bridge and EMG 60 at the neck.
This is an active humbucker pairing that has served him well over the years. It is one of the quintessential metal guitar pickup choices, and the King V is quintessentially built for metal.
Available now, the Pro Series Phil Demmel KV King V is available now, priced
$2,099, and that price includes a moulded Foam-core guitar case. See Jackson for more details.
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