- Back I went into a music store in Georgia when I was 18 years old. I had saved up $400 from my birthday and Christmas and was going to buy a better Electric guitar. I went to a store in Fayetteville. I walked in and saw this Ibanez Artist and thought it was badass. I asked the owner of I could play it. I plugged it in and kind of quietly ran it through whatever paces I knew to do at the time. I played all the riffs I knew in a distorted sound and strummed some chords with it clean sounding. I then went outside and asked my mom for another $400 so I could buy this $800 guitar. She said no way José.

When I went back in, another kid was playing the guitar. He was about 11 years old. It was like seeing someone holding hands with your girlfriend. I walked around the store wasting time until this punk kid would let me play this guitar one more time before I left without buying anything. He sat the guitar down on the hanger haphazardly and it fell off the wall and knocked a big chip out of it. The kid ran out of the store and my next words were, "How much for the guitar now?” I ran outside and told my mom the story while gasping for air with excitement. I calmed myself down and then said "He would sell the guitar for $600 now. Mom you gotta let me borrow $200.” She thought it was a cool... story and knew that I was a hard worker and let me borrow, I repeat borrow the $200 needed to buy this beauty.

It's the one guitar out of every guitar I own that is me. This is what I sound like. I love this guitar. I call her "Ibee". She's badass. She's pretty much stock and beat to hell from playing but she stays in tune like a champ and sings every night.

- Back I bought this Nash Strat in 2013. I played Strats a lot when I was younger. I was a big Stevie Ray Vaughan fan and a Strat was what you played to sound like him. But between the ages of 20-35, I kind of ditched playing Strats. Later, I started recording a lot and wanted to get a Strat for the studio. I went and got a Nash Strat. They make a good guitar that feels old for a nice price. I loved the fact that the neck was huge on this thing. Once I really started playing on it, that the neck was enormous and ridiculous to try and play. So I took it to Donald "The Don" Dunlavy and got him to shave it down. If you held the guitar now, you’d say this is one of the biggest necks on any guitar I've ever seen and that's after we shaved it down. So I named this guitar Slugger just because it's got that big old neck.

- Back I had been looking for a really awesome Les Paul for quite a while. I decided that I wanted to get a really good one, and that I wasn't going to settle. I wanted to wait until I found "The One.” We were in Nashville playing a show and I called my lovely friend Christy Carter at Carter Vintage and asked her if she had any LP I could check out during sound check. She said she had a few cool LPs and that she'd be happy to let me check them out for a few hours. This is where I met Sweet Pea. It's a 2013 Gibson R9 that was sent to a company called Historic Makeover. They can totally overhaul your guitar and make it as close as you can possibly get to a vintage 1958-1962 Gibson Les Paul. (1958-1962 are considered the best Les Paul's ever made and they fetch upward of $200k). Historic Makeover does all this super cool stuff to your LP so that it feels like the real deal. The guitar also had original PAF pickups on it as well. Someone had bought an original pair of early 60's Gibson PAF Humbucker pickups and put them on this guitar. Anyone who knows what I'm talking about knows that this is basically what you want. This guitar is the best sounding and playing Les Paul I've ever played. I told my wife that I wanted to be buried with this guitar. You should check out Historic Makeover. They have a really cool website that goes over everything they do to guitars. It's pretty badass.

- Back If you are reading this and don’t know who Brent Mason is, then you should stop now and check him out for sure. I think he might be the most recorded guitarist ever. Don't quote me on that. He’s known for being on a lot of Allen Jackson’s recordings specifically. At one point, he was the go-to guitarist in Nashville for session guitar, and probably still is. He's a monster of a player, and a really cool guy too. He played chicken pickin’ style guitar on "It's not OK" on the Zac Brown Band album The Foundation.

He has this guitar that's his main axe that he built from random other guitar parts and he painted it bondo grey. This is a copy of that Frankenstein guitar made by a company called Valley Arts. Gibson Guitars now owns Valley Arts. I knew a guy who worked for Valley Arts named Bruno. I love Bruno. I have had some of the best times and weirdest conversations with this guy. When ZBB was first getting started, I met Bruno and he treated me like a real pro and knew that we weren't just a flash in the pan kind of band. We weren't making money and I was playing an ok Telecaster at the time. I asked him if he knew anything about the Brent Mason signature model from Valley Arts. He said, “Yeah, let me check on it.” Well about two weeks later I come... home and there's a giant box at my house, and inside it was this guitar. He gave it to me. For free. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. You know you are doing something right when you get free stuff.

So a big shout-out to Bruno for always being a great hang and making me feel like a pro and not a fish out of water for a bunch of Georgia boys trying to do their thing in a Nashville based music scene. I later added the Blackberry Smoke sticker because those are my boys keeping real Rock ‘N’ Roll and Southern Rock on the map.

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- Back We recorded a big band style jazz tune on the Zac Brown Band album Jekyll+Hyde called "Mango Tree". I went to college for jazz, so I spent a good bit of time studying and playing in a jazz setting. I told my guitar teacher, Dave Frackenpohl, that I'd never play big band style jazz music again after I left college. I ate my words on this one. Dave I owe you dinner I guess. On the album I played the 1969 Gibson L5 that Zac bought me as a gift. What a guy!!! But when we hit the road for the Jekyll+Hyde Tour there was no way I was taking the L5 out on the road. So I called my good buddy Mike at Ibanez and said let’s get an arch top out on the road for this big band song. He sent out the Ibanez AF 200. It plays great and sounds awesome. I love Ibanez guitars. They are just pricey enough to have good quality, but not so pricey that you worry about them. I mean that in the best way. There's something to really be said about making a solid product at a price point that lets the consumer use the product a lot. Ibanez is the workhorse of guitars in the jazz scene. Get in there and get your hands dirty kind of vibe.

- Back Peter Stroud is one of the nicest, coolest, most badass musicians you could ever meet. Clay Cook has been a friend of his for a while and he introduced me to Peter. I quickly realized that Peter knows everything there is to know about gear because he's owned it and played it at some point in his life. I went over to his house to hang out and pick guitars one day and he showed me this guitar. Duisenberg makes great guitars and palm benders on this thing are the most intuitive version of B-bender technology that has ever been invented in my opinion. It takes a while to get the hang of it and make it musical, but it's awesome once you do. In the back of my mind, I have this dream that one day I will be able to really play pedal steel style guitar on this thing - like really be able to do it. For now, I need more practice. Hats off to Peter Stroud and Duesenberg guitars.

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- Back When I was around 20-25 years old I taught guitar lessons for a living. I really enjoyed it since I'm kind of a people person and enjoy the one on one. It was also a way to make good money by being involved in music. I've done a lot of tough, physical work too, like picking up rocks, construction, hanging windows, and cutting grass, so to me, sitting in an air conditioned room and teaching kids about Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Rock ‘N’ Roll and Blues was pretty killer. I taught at a music store called Sadler Music for years. Mr. Sadler was a super cool guy. I told him “One day I need to get a real acoustic guitar if I was going to be a professional musician.” He totally agreed and said, “Why don't you buy one of those Alvarez Yairi guitars over there on the wall?” I said, “Yeah right, that thing is way out of my price range.” He said, “Go find one you like and just give me what you got, when you can, until you pay it off.” So I paid him $50 a week for what seemed like forever. He never once kept a tab on the amount that was left on the guitar. I kept up with it, and paid it off over time.

Years later Zac mentioned that he got a tech guy who's going to start working for us. He's going to be our computer/tech wiz. I said, “Cool.” This was before the band had gotten big. In walks Frank Sadler... We start talking and I asked him “So what are you doing at Zac’s house?” Frank said, "I'm talking to him about computers.” I said, "You are the tech wiz guy?” Zac said, "Hold up, you guys know each other?” I said, "Yeah man, I used to teach at Frank's dad’s music store, and Frank was there all the time. He also taught sax lessons back then.” Fast-forward, Frank has been our computer/tech guy ever since that day, and is one of the hardest working, never complaining, best dirty joke telling guys you could ever ask for.

So, I play this guitar because it plays and sounds good and I like the pickup and EQ panels. But also because it reminds me of how cool Frank’s dad was, how picking up rocks for a living totally sucks, and how far we've come as a band and personally as a musician. It's a long way back to Sadler Music in Kennesaw Georgia my friends. A-long-way.

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