Warren DeMartini

Next is the Snake Skin guitar which is one of Warren's trademarks. In addition to his flashy painted guitars, this guitar with the new idea of sticking the snake skin to it became extremely popular among guitar kids. The photo on the right is his first Snake Skin guitar, and there are several guitars made after this one. The latest one is mainly used at shows along with Bugs Bunny guitar.



	Year Built	December, 1985

	Body	Alder

	Neck	Maple

	Fingerboard	Maple

	Pickups	F : - M : - R : Seymore Duncan JB

	Bridge	Floyd Rose




At first, Warren asked Performance Guitar to somehow stick snake skin to the white painted Jackson/Charvel guitar. Mr. Sugai put the snake skin on to the front of the body, then it was coated by clear laquer by Jackson/Charvel. However, Warren didn't like it very much because the original feel of the snake skin was spoiled from the laquer that was sprayed on to it, and only the front of the body was covered by snake skin. So, Warren requested to have it made only with snake skin covering the whole body without any coating over it. The Snake Skin guitar in the photo above is the one created in this way which we first saw Warren play.



Corsair model, Frank Zappa style, (See Corsair page) but with single humbucker (rear pick up).

As an example of sticking leather (skin) of animals to a guitar, there is a country western musician who has had his telecaster made with cowhide stuck on to it which is mostly sewn up on the side of the body. But Warren didn't like it that way, so he had snake skin stuck on to the front and rear of the guitar first, then the side, so the join would be hidden.

The snake skin used for his first guitar was from a Python.

The snake skin was stuck on to the under-coated body using water-based glue. It was applied wet. It shrinks when it dries, and it gave a characteristic sound. It's the same technique used to apply skin to the Japanese traditional Taiko drum. Somehow this made the guitar sound really good but Warren himself did not understand why only this guitar sounded different for the time being.



It was the beginning of December, 1985 when Warren put forward the request to Performance Guitar, and he wanted to have it ready by Christmas. Although the neck and body was ready, this gave them only 3 weeks to work on snake skin-covering process and to build the guitar.

Warren repeatedly called them to make sure it was ready by Christmas. About a week before Christmas, Warren showed up at Performance Guitar with a bottle of French Wine as a gift and at the same time, he had to make sure that it would be ready in time. lol

To meet the strict deadline, Mr. Sugai worked hard, and he had to babysit his little daughter at the same time at his store. lol

The Snake Skin guitar that Warren plays now is the one that was made in 1992 as a back up for the first Snake Skin guitar. Info on body, neck, finger board, pick ups and bridge is all the same as the first one.

(The one with the Anaconda skin which Warren used in the video "Lay It Down" was not made by Performance Guitar, so there's no info on that one.)

"I remember that I worked all night long for many days to finish the Snake Skin guitar. Now, it has become a good recollection. (Laugh)"

- Kuni Sugai (Performance Guitar) -

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