Tommy Concrete : Customised Yamaha Pacifica

With The Exploited at Cieszanów Rock Festiwal Poland 2012

Peroxide Hell started its life as a basic pleasure model, as in a Yamaha Pacifica. A perfectly good guitar and not only because they are cheap. Somewhere down the line somebody decided to stick a Seymour Duncan SH11 humbucker pickup in the bridge position. Even further down the line I was given it as a present from those nice folk at Grassworks studios where I did some vocals on my Banished From The Mages Guild album. I then gave it to George Corcoran of George Corcoran guitars who sprayed it black, refretted it with stainless steel frets, shoved a khaler trem on it, rammed an Iron Gear Steamhammer pickup in the middle position, slammed an Iron Gear Rolling Mill pickup in the bridge, crafted a wood scratchplate, put grover tuners on it, new nut and wrote my name on it. It sounds great and plays great studio rehearsal and live.

I also have the technology to put the middle pickup out of phase via a push pull tone nob. I like to keep the amp simple and effects few, I much prefer to alter the sound via the guitar itself. Most folk don't all use all their pickups and never alter the tone or volume. I'm always looking for a way to find the sweet spot. I want to gain the sound I want via my guitar as I quite often use different amps.

I've always wanted a three humbucker guitar. Mainly out of badness. Three pick up option gives me a lot of ability to mess about with tones, it's great. More is more. Some amps go up to eleven, some guitars have three humbuckers.

The Khaler trem system is set hardtailed because I don't want to sacrifice string change speed for whammy bar action. This works as a great bridge for me though, I really like the rollers the strings go over and the fine tuners are very useful. I hate busting strings and going out of tune more than I like sustain, so this shit is what I want.

I always insist on a Stu Gordon signature plectrum. OR THE GIGS OFF!! It's got a buffalo horn nut as well as having me name on it, fucking hell.

I asked George why he had written Peroxide Hell on the back of the headstock. He replied that he had asked me the other night what I wanted to call the guitar as it had had so much done to it he felt it deserved a name. Apparently I said 'Slut cunt or peroxide hell' so thanks to George for the choice on that one.

Maple neck and stainless steel strings. I'm used to rosewood necks and so at first I found the difference in tone a bit of a surprise. The maple has a much snappier top end to it's sound, I like it.