Most people will not associate Punk rock, metal and hard rock with luxurious or unique guitars, while many heavy metal guitars look wild most of them are technically normal guitars with nothing exceedingly special to offer beyond decent sound and wild shapes. However sometimes one does find instruments and artists who breaks this idea in two. One such artists is the guitarist known as Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein (born Paul Caiafa) brother to one of the earliest members of the iconic Punk rock group The Misfits, Doyle later joined the band himself as their main guitarist. Though not in any way a talented guitarist (Doyle’s own words) his iconic imagery, ability to turn simply pickings into great songs and never-stop-for-nothing attitude has made him a major celebrity in an exclusive scene. This might all seem relatively uninteresting to guitar-fanatics, yet even for people like that mr. Frankenstein have something to offer.
As part of the horror-punk look that Doyle have adopted since his time in the Misfits, his guitar the Annihilator is of similar shocking visage, sporting hooks and edges that look sharp enough to cut yourself on. However that is in no way the most interesting part about it. What is on the other hand, is the fact that Doyle have build the entire guitar by himself, first trying to create his dream guitar out of wood, but quickly giving up on that when he realised it was to difficult to work with. The neck is instead made of a solid graphite cast, which goes all the way down through the body. In fact, most of the boy is part of the neck, while the “wings” on either side on the neck are removable parts, making sure that maintenance is easy and within the capabilities of Doyle himself.
Being a trained machinist, Doyle does not only do work on his own guitar, he has produced several different instruments, including the amplifiers that he used on his most recent tour, though some parts of each piece of equipment may be brought from other companies and manufactures, Doyle assembles and put together the whole thing by himself, a very cool thing to do for a guy who according to himself doesn’t really understands guitars (we think he might be exaggerating a bit!). And though the Annihilator has quite a couple of years behind it, and have received a fair amount of bashing and banging, Doyle isn’t ready to retire the guitar just yet. To get a replacement guitar would be easy enough however, as Doyle has entered a partnership with guitar company Oktober Guitars who manufacture a number of Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein signature series of guitars and bass-guitars – including a copy of Doyle’s own Annihilator. So it would seem that replacing the old with a new one would be quite straightforward. However for Doyle is isn’t that easy, to him the original guitar has a sound and a feel that Oktober guitar could never duplicate, and though the signature Annihilators are almost exact copies of the original, Doyle’s own unique graphite design ensures that though they might be alike, only Wolfgang von Frankenstein wields the true axe of Annihilation!
For more info on Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein visit his webpage here.
For more info on Okotober Guitars go to their site here.
For more Premier Guitar videos, visit their youtube channel here.
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