Jackson has expanded its California-made American Series with one of the greatest metal guitars of all time, the Rhoads RR24, offering the asymmetric V with the choice of a hardtail or Floyd Rose vibrato, and giving it a reverse headstock just in case it didn’t look aggressive enough.
For many players, this will be the acme of Jackson’s high-performance designs, the heavyweight champ – a modern update on the custom prototype signature guitar developed for the late Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads.
“This axe embodies everything the Jackson name has always stood for to me,” said
Brandon Ellis. “It's built for metal and speed, and comes 100 per cent tour-worthy right off of the shelf, with bulletproof American construction, high quality specs and hardware and contemporary upgrades.”
Ellis shows us exactly what he means alongside the great Jeff Loomis in Jackson’s demo video. We’ll let the Black Dahlia Murder guitarist run through some of the spec highlights then recap some more, because there is a lot going on with these.
“The easily accessible spokewheel adjusted truss rod, push-in style tremolo bar, stainless steel Floyd Rose upgrades, glow in the dark side dots and locking tuners are all huge quality of life improvements for performing musicians like myself,” continues Ellis. “I have the matte finished olive drab version which both feels amazing in my hands and looks killer on anybody who wields this classic, sharp-angled, metal beast of a guitar!”
It really is a love letter to angles. Maybe, just maybe, the reverse headstock is pushing it; the six-in-line Jackson headstock is already the sort of thing that’d panic TSA staff. But no, give us the reverse headstock. Just look at them all lined up in formation. It is a thing of beauty.
As Ellis notes, and as the name RR24 implies, these have 24 jumbo stainless steel frets. The 12” to 16” compound radius ebony fingerboard is super comfortable, hyper quick, with the maple neck reinforced with graphite to keep it steady despite it being rake thin.
As per the model’s traditional build, this too has a maple neck-through-body design, with solid alder wings. The balance of a Rhoads on a guitar strap is always dead-on, perfect, and if you must you can wedge it between your legs for playing seated (speaking from experience here after breaking a leg just weeks after buying one).
Bringing the production of the Rhoads RR24 back to the USA is kind of a big deal for the brand, and for its fans, so it’s perhaps no surprise that it has resisted the temptation to go with a set of en vogue Fishman Fluence humbuckers, or perhaps the red-hot active firepower of a pair of EMGs.
Instead, we get the passive and arguably unsurpassed pairing of a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge position and a Seymour Duncan ’59 at the neck. Plenty of juice for high-gain venom, but there are some great classic rock electric guitar tones to be had with these, and that ’59 is an electric guitar pickup that cleans up well.
The big decision here is whether to get the Hipshot hardtail model (priced £2,199/$2,729 to $2,779), which is offered in Satin Black and Snow White, or for the Floyd Rose 1500 equipped model (priced £2,249/$2,849 to $2,899), with its finish options comprising Satin Black, Matte Army Drab and Snow White.
That Floyd is recessed in the body to cater for all manner of harmonic screams and squeals, divebombs to hell, et cetera. But then that Hipshot is a tidy, no-fuss unit that takes a lot of pain out string changes, alternate and drop-tunings. Either way, you get a moulded guitar case, inside which is a “masterpiece” of a guitar.
“The American Series Rhoads is an amazing metal masterpiece!” says Loomis. “Aggressive looks with killer playability all over the neck, this guitar really stands out. Partnering with Jackson again to showcase this guitar with Brandon Ellis was a total blast and unforgettable experience.”
The American Series Rhoads RR24 is available now. See Jackson for more details.
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