Gibson’s ’70s-era RD shape has risen to prominence in recent years at the hands of Ghost’s Nameless Ghouls, and now Epiphone has officially relaunched the guitar… as a signature model for Bring Me The Horizon’s Lee Malia.
Although Malia isn’t the first artist you’ll think of at the mention of RD, this new version does boast his Artisan look, as seen on his Les Paul and Explorer models.
That means a Walnut finish on the maple-topped mahogany body, vintage-style Artisan inlays, as well as Gibson USA P-94 single coil and 84T-LM humbucker pickups with coil-splits and ‘dummy coils’ to reduce single-coil hum.
Elsewhere, there’s ivory and black body binding, a torrefied composite fingerboard and LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge and stopbar tailpiece, while Malia’s signature appears on the back of the headstock.
The Ltd Ed Lee Malia RD Custom Artisan Outfit is available from October; there’s no pricing yet, but we’d wager it’ll mirror the £679/$799 price tag of the BMTH man’s Explorer. Epiphone has more info.
Epiphone will face stiff competition from Hagstrom’s Fantomen Ghost signature model, which launched last month and boasts a very similar outline plus Lundgren humbuckers, and comes in white, black and vintage sunburst finishes.
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