Questions about Warren D.

[thetruthguy]

I know the new Charvel guitars are coming out sometime, but I'm confused on a couple of things.

In the Dance video, we see Warren playing a Fender and Robbin playing a Gibson. Did that have to do with copyright issues?

Then, Warren switched to Performance? Why did he stop playing his Charvels?

Now, of course, he's going back to Charvel. Or is he? What happened to his old guitars, and if he is going back to Charvel, are all new ones going to be built for him. Will he stop playing Performance?

How did Performance get around the whole copyright issue with the headstock when GMW and Charvel had to stop making the headstock?

Now that Ratt's back together, seems Charvel needs to be pushing the new guitars, eh?

[sonicsamurai]

a couple of answers...

80s guitarists were whores, i'm suprised he wasn't seen with more, although to add to ur question he famously plays a tele a lot so he was sprobably just experimenting, just coz he has a flashy axe on stage doesn't mean he uses it in the studio, for example, he uses a 1 hum charvel in the shame shame shame video, when u can clearly here that its a neck piclup being used on his lead (probably from his performance or a strat) not a single bridge hum, lots of guitarists then used different gear on stage to what was being used in the studio i.e. distinctly un 80s vintage jobs - they had to look cool onstage in performance - hence playing a flashy charvel kramer etc for the cameras

and ratt has been back together for a long time , since 1995, i image charvel stared making them because there was enough demand from people for them - he is a popuar 80s guitarist

[necrotechno]

I think the gear in the Dance video was different because the "story" of the video was that they were just at the club, as customers, and the band that was actually booked to play got booted off the stage becasue they were there. Ratt was using the other band's gear, see.

But Robbin had been seen in several guitar mags with that particular Firebird, so...

[chrisolson]

I know the new Charvel guitars are coming out sometime, but I'm confused on a couple of things.

In the Dance video, we see Warren playing a Fender and Robbin playing a Gibson. Did that have to do with copyright issues?

Then, Warren switched to Performance? Why did he stop playing his Charvels?

Now, of course, he's going back to Charvel. Or is he? What happened to his old guitars, and if he is going back to Charvel, are all new ones going to be built for him. Will he stop playing Performance?

How did Performance get around the whole copyright issue with the headstock when GMW and Charvel had to stop making the headstock?

Now that Ratt's back together, seems Charvel needs to be pushing the new guitars, eh?

The whole idea behind the "Dance" video was that they were just sitting in the pub and got invited on stage to play, so they played "non-Ratt" guitars.

Warren played Performance because he got a better deal - I don't believe J/C ever PAID their endorsers - other brands did.

Warren still has most of his old guitars - they just don't go on the road. He still has some Performance guitars on the road. He also has Fenders, Gibsons, and re-issue Charvels. Perfomance guitars have a slightly differnt headstock on the production models. I suppose if Warren gets his guitars directly from Japan, US copyrights are a little tough to enforce. He did get his direct from Japan.

Charvel only came back as a US brand (US made anyway...) recently - at least for the masses. With all the renewed interest, they decided to make hay while the sun was shining - why not release a Signature Series when you have a hot hand.

Hope that helps...

[thetruthguy]

Thanks for all the input. So, Performance is from Japan? I didn't know that. Yeah, I understood the story of the dance vid. I just thought maybe when that came out, artists weren't allowed to play guitars that were infringing on copyrights. I remember Dokken went through a lot of that with the J. Frogs. And then there were a lot of other vids with taped-over logos, a la Vai in Crossroads. What I guess I just didn't understand was why Warren would have a crossed-swords, Frenchie, etc., graphic guitars from Charvel and then decide to switch over to Performance and get the exact same guitars made. I can understand him switching over, because he could no longer get those guitars from J/C and was obviously always partial to the strat-style guitar and headstock, but he didn't do much in the way of new designs.

Anyway, it'd be cool if Warren would release the whole story. And now that I understand it a little more, I'm realizing just how much Fender screwed things up when they decided to enforce their copyrights. A lot of guitarists who wanted superstrats were left hanging. Too bad they couldn't have just licensed headstocks during that time.