1 week Ago By [email protected] (Matt Owen)
Of all the electric guitar trends to have emerged over the past few years – from the proliferation of digital amp modelers to the rise of the rubber bridge guitar – one of the most notable is the soaring popularity of offset guitars in the progressive and heavy metal realms. After Jim Root recalibrated the Fender Jazzmaster for a game-changing signature guitar a few years ago, many of his peers have since followed suit. Mike Stringer, for example, recently worked with Jackson to transform the Charvel Surfcaster into an extended range metal machine .
Misha Mansoor is another big-name player who has put his own distinct, heavy-minded spin on Charvel’s long-lost offset template, having worked with the Jackson Custom Shop to produce a pair of heavy relic’d models earlier this year. These are but a few examples of metal players hopping on the high-performance offset trend in recent years, and in an upcoming interview with Guitar World , Mansoor offered his own two cents on why such guitars are experiencing a rapid renaissance. On the one hand, the Periphery virtuoso believes it could be a naturally occurring phenomenon that is a result of general movements in the vintage guitar market.
“I think these things move in cycles. Maybe it's a reflection of the vintage market,” he tells Guitar World . “Like, over the pandemic, prices of vintage Strats and Teles just went nuts.
“My business partner at Horizon Devices, Brian Gilmanov, used to trade a lot of vintages. He knows vintage guitars inside out. I was like, ‘Alright, what's the guitar I could get, let's call it an inflation hedge?’ And he was like, ‘You should get a Jazzmaster.
’ “He was showing me some stuff for six or seven or eight grand. I was like, ‘That's a lot of money. I don’t really want to spend that much on a Jazzmaster.
’ It just didn't seem right. And then now, some of these are going for 15 to 20 grand. I should have listened to him.
“But it just seems like that was the next thing, because the Strats had already gone. And then he [said], ‘It'll probably be the Jaguars [next].’ So I think maybe it’s a reflection and an extension of that.
” Another, more straightforward theory that Mansoor offers concerns the fact that, at the end of the day, offsets just look cool. And who doesn’t love a cool-looking guitar? “It's kind of trendy and it goes in cycles,” he goes on. “But as much as it may be a trend, I wouldn't get a guitar I don't like.
I like the look of an offset. “Maybe it's just something the whole community was feeling. It's like, alright, but you know, I've done my Strat, maybe I should have done a Tele – and maybe I will do a Tele – but you know what, I don't have is an offset.
“Maybe a lot of people are feeling the same way. They're like, ‘Yeah, [I’m] covered with Superstrats and Strats and whatnot, but I don't have an offset. And hey, now I'm seeing it in this light.
..’ [It’s a] very attractive offset, you know? “People may do the same thing with the Les Paul, where they're just like, ‘Oh, yeah, I don't have a Les Paul.
Maybe I should get a Les Paul,’ you know? “So maybe it's a little bit of that. People hadn't been thinking about them, they see some pretty ones, and obviously start thinking about them. I'm sure that fad will fade a little bit, but I'll still love this guitar after that.
” Keep your eyes peeled on GuitarWorld.com for the full interview with Misha Mansoor, in which the Periphery guitarist takes a deep dive into his new Jackson Surfcasters – and teases a potential signature run..
