Guns N’ Roses Icon Reveals How He ImitatedJimmy Page

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Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke revealed how he imitated Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, KISS guitarist Ace Frehley, and Peter Frampton by getting the same guitar as them in a new Ultimate-Guitar interview.

What was your first guitar and what were some of the first songs that you learned how to play?
“Wow, that’s a great question. I have to try to remember back that far… Let’s just say my first real guitar was a Les Paul Standard. I had a black Les Paul Standard.

“To me, Ace Frehley, Jimmy Page, Peter Frampton, those were the players who were big when I started playing. So those guys all played Les Pauls. Peter Frampton had, probably the best-looking Les Paul so I got one that looked just like it except it didn’t have three pickups.

“That was my first main guitar that I had. I actually had a couple of guitars stolen when I was really young. I was a big fan of Rick Derringer and he had a BC Rich Mockingbird Supreme.

“Man, I worked at a music store and I must have worked for, like, six months to pay off that guitar and oddly enough, it was stolen. I was playing on stage. I had just swapped it out for a song for a Gibson Melody Maker that I had just got. I looked back and my Mockingbird was gone.

“It was a real venue too, not just, like, a backyard party. Oddly enough, I got it back, like, five years later because it was such a unique guitar. It turned up at a pawn shop and my friend saw it and got ahold of me. So I went down there with the police report and everything and got the guitar back five years later.