It must’ve been 2005 when I started playing guitar, fiercely motivated by the music I listened to at the time: anything loud and aggressive, from the Sex Pistols, Nirvana and the Misfits, all the way to Metallica, Slayer and some - mostly Swedish - old school Death Metal.

Fast-forwarding to present day, I recently sold the last electric guitar I owned, and used the money to buy myself a hollow body guitar. While doing that, I thought of all the guitars I ever owned, and realized that it’d be a great idea to write down what I remember about them.

A Random Acoustic Guitar

My very first guitar, that I borrowed it from a classmate’s girlfriend. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a picture of it anywhere.

It was a regular nylon string acoustic guitar that was alright, I guess, and served me well learning the basics. But considering that I was after “loud and aggressive”, the lack of amplified distortion had me looking into electric guitars after a couple of months.

An Epiphone SG Special

Despite not playing it at all, I kept this guitar around for many years, but eventually sold it in 2016.

A Jackson Kelly KE3

I bought this guitar in 2006 or 2007, and it was a significant upgrade from the SG. It was also my first true “metal axe”, more evil looking than an Explorer, and close enough to what I actually wanted, but couldn’t get anywhere at the time (an Ironbird, see below).

The guitar played well enough too, and I learned a ton about guitar maintenance and especially Floyd Rose Tremolo systems. I also replaced the Jackson humbuckers with Seymour Duncans, which was a very reasonable upgrade.

I sold the Kelly in 2013 or 2014, after it’d seen a lot of action, both on stage and for a couple of recordings.

A Ran Guitars Ironbird

Ever since seeing the old photos of Morbid Angel’s Trey Azagthoth and his red Ironbird, I knew that this was the guitar I wanted. It took me years of scouring ebay and other second hand option until I found one in 2011.

It was a Ran Guitars made-to-order piece that I bought for a very good price from some guy in Spain, and I was ecstatic when it arrived. I loved playing it and there was hardly anything to complain about. I quickly replaced the EMG active humbucker with a custom Bare Knuckle Warpig humbucker that was perfectly suited for the extremist Black/Death Metal I used the guitar for at the time.

After 2016, I hardly played guitar, and when I did, it wasn’t with a band, and it wasn’t any metal. It took me a couple of years to get ready to sell this beast, however. But when I did, at some point in 2021, I ended up getting about double of what I paid for it, which was very helpful at the time.

A BC Rich Ironbird

My roommate found this one in a second hand shop in 2013, and I pretty much ran there to get it.

It turned out that it was a model from 1996, possibly even made in the USA, but definitely properly built. It also came with the reversed headstock, which made it look somewhat similar to a scythe, which I loved.

Compared to the Ran Ironbird, it was a little less beastly sounding (no Warpig in this one), but I loved it anyway, because playing a real 90s instrument felt a bit more authentic to my old school Black/Death Metal obsessed self back then.

I sold this one in 2021, at the same time as the other Ironbird, and got a good price for it too. Interestingly, they were both bought by the same guy, a collector from a nearby country.

A Gibson Flying V

I’m not exactly sure why I bought this guitar, but I did so at some point in 2013. It was fun to play though, and I enjoyed both how it sounded, and how light it was. Playing it while seated was pretty annoying, however, and I didn’t use it very much compared to the two Ironbirds.

When I eventually sold it in 2017, I lost quite a bit of money - the buyer was an extremely annoying guy that just kept talking, mostly nonsense, and eventually wore me out. I really needed the money back then, but I should’ve walked away instead. Not doing that is something I still regret.

A Mysterious Les Paul

I saw this guitar listed on a classified ads site in 2015. It looked nice and wasn’t too expensive, so I decided to go there to check it out. The seller was a boy who inherited the guitar from his grandpa, but he was into playing the piano and wanted to get himself a keyboard. I was told that the grandpa brought the guitar from a trip to Asia, probably China or Japan, at some point in the 70s, and that it may be a copy of an old Ibanez, or an actual one that “fell off a truck…” before getting stamped with the logo.

It sounded alright and was in a good condition, so I walked away with it and enjoyed it for a while. It was also the only guitar I had left after selling the two Ironbirds in 2021, but I didn’t play a lot in recent years.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to sell this Les Paul to get myself a hollow body guitar instead.

An Ibanez AS53

After selling the above Les Paul, I added a bit of money and bought an Ibanez AS53. It’s my first hollow body guitar, and I chose it because not having to set up an amplifier etc. is definitely going to help me get back into playing more regularly.

The guitar itself looks absolutely stunning and sounds great. It also plays excellently, and it definitely feels like an instrument with a much higher price tag, which is quite remarkable. It’s also a little bigger than the other guitars I owned, but that’s not a problem at all.

Right now, I really love playing it and I often find myself looking at it for a moment due to how good it looks. It’s definitely not a metal guitar, so I’m actually motivated to play a lot more diverse stuff, and to explore the many styles and genres that I have neglected over the years.