Rands...just being lazy

[Ozz666]

Small Rand collection....the black one was refinned at some point....it was owned and built for the same guy who had the Rand V that Ron now has, he was a b/f of Rand's sister or something.....
I thought the black one was a prototype until I saw the middle yellow/orange one....they are exactly the same, same body and everything....so I'm curious how many of these were made.

[neilli]

Cool Trio Joel The body shape normally distracts from this, but to my eyes, from that angle the guitar on the left has a Hamer Californian vibe about it....

[Wayniac]

Nice fiddles - and LOVIN' that boogie stack to the left !

[Mr Graphic]

Very cool to see three together, I like the symmetry of the angles. What would you compare them too?

[1trussell]

I used to know a guy that had a Rand very similar to the one on the left. That thing was one hot piece of axe. I would love to give one of those a spin sometime.

Cool guitars you've got there.

[petedz]

Amazing collection! I've never tried one of those personally, but I've been curious about 'em ever since they showed up with Whitesnake. How do the necks feel on those?

[Otränad]

:O wow.. I think I'm in love with that black one!

[RacerX]

Ah, so there's where that Witch went!

I much prefer the Superstrat style on the left, love those long horns & headstock!

[RacerX]

Here's an earlier pic



And here's the original thread with more Rand pics, history & info:

http://www.jcfonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19420

[tortfeaser]

Time for the annual Rand thread. Those are some great looking Rands you guys have there. I'll do my best to try not to butcher the Rand story too much.

The guitars were made by a guy named Rand Havener who is from West Chester, PA (Philly suburb, home to Bam Margera of Jackass and Viva La Bam fame). Rand moved out to CA and worked at B.C. Rich making guitars.

He is friends with Doyle and Jerry from the Misfits. They decided that they wanted to start a guitar company. Rand went to NJ to start building guitars with the Misfits guys. They sent him down to Baltimore to check out Paul Reed Smith's operation and to pick up wood for the project. They went out and bought all the equipment needed to start building guitars. Out of the original 60 they built, 50 of them were unusable due to the necks warping.

At some point Rand moved operations back to California to build the guitars. The rumor has it that he was making them in Tom Anderson's shop but somebody told me once that they were actually built in Newberry Park but that it was close to Anderson's shop. The guitars were painted by Pat Wilkins.

Most of the early designs were very exotic looking (probably due to his experiences with B.C. Rich and the Misfits. Here is a picture of one of those designs.



Anyway, back in the day my friend Jim went to high school with Rand's sister. Rand came home for Thanksgiving one year and brought some guitars to show my friend. Jim decided to have Rand make him a guitar and only gave him the instructions, "make it like a Jackson soloist." This is what he made for him:



I'm not sure where the Vivian connection was made. Perhaps it was when Rand was working at B.C. Rich and Vivian was an endorsee. Vivian played the guitar pictured above and wanted one of his own. In fact he wanted the exact guitar but it was due to be shipped back to PA for my friend Jim. When Vivian landed the video shoot for Whitesnake's Still of the Night (He was only supposed to be in the video, not the band at that point in time) he asked Rand if he could play the guitar pictured above for the video. Rand called up Jim and asked if Vivian could use it. Things never worked out and Vivian played one of the early production style Rands instead.

The Rand pictured above has a much thinner neck than the production Rands. The guitar has so much mojo it isn't even funny. Rand ended up making about three Rands for Vivian. The one he played in the Still of the Night video was donated to the Hard Rock cafe. That guitar was also feature on the cover of Guitar For The Practicing Musician back in the 80s. Vivan used a differend Rand in the Is This Love video. This guitar was another step towards the production style that would develope later. It is a bit more angled than the black and white Rand above.



Rand made guitars for Gunnar Nelson and another one was used in a Diet Coke commercial with Jerry Hall.

Things looked to be picking up for Rand with some of his high level endorsees but he couldn't keep the company profitable. A year after Rand made the black and white strat for Jim he came back to PA with two more guitars he was selling. One was the purple V that Racer X has and the other one was the black shaped one I call the Witch/Which. That one was originally orange but Jim had Rand refinish it black with gold hardware. Jim routed out the trem recess himself. I am told that if you look at the control cavities of the black one that you can still see remnants of the original orange paint job. Jim dubbed it the Which/Witch because people would ask him what Rand he was going to play at a given show and if it wasn't the strat or V people whould always go, "which Rand are you talking about Jim?" So he decided to call it the "Witch/Which" Rand as a play on words. It's evil looking anyway so the Witch/Which name has kind of his inside joke. Jim originally payed over $1500 for the strat but the other two only cost him $500 a piece because Rand was trying to unload them.

Rand would often go to music stores in NY and Philly and sell them door to door. I guess the biggest compliment Rand ever got was when other companies starting knocking off his design. The Hamer Californian is obviously influenced by the Rand design. Tokai even started making Rand knock-offs.



There were some rumors that Rand had died in a motorcyle accident but this is false. He did in fact get into a motorcyle accident but he is still alive and well. His Sister moved to CA and started a development company. Rand is working with her now. Rumor has it that he still has the itch to build guitars...

Finally here are my two Rands:



Feel free to supplement or alter my Rand story as I have been piecing together bits of information over the years to flesh out the true story.

[1trussell]

Awesome piece of history. Thanks for that.

So, if he's got the itch to build guitars, does anyone know how to contact him in order to get one built?

[RacerX]

I hereby dub tortfeaser King of All Rand History!

Yeah, whereabouts in California? Maybe I can get a sig on mine....

[Rupe]

I just re-acquired the Viv guitar above. I had it for about two weeks back in '93 but returned it to its previous owner (who then traded it to Ed Roman).
The rest of my Rands include one of the first prototypes (neck through unlike the set necks on the production models and a top mount Floyd unlike the recessed Floyds on later models) and two production models. I have played many of these guitars and most were great, although my purple one (I bought it new...had 6 to choose from at the time) stands above the rest. Here it is posing with my bullseye charvel:



Here is the prototype:



And here is a family shot without the recently added Viv guitar:



A last little bit of eye candy is the Diet Pepsi commercial guitar mentioned above (a collector in FL owned this last I knew):

[RacerX]

Congrats, Rupe! That finish on the purple one is very similar to that on mine.

[Ozz666]

This thread is amazing....Rupe thanks again for some excellent information...and tortfeaser....thank you for sharing your knowledge as well!
This thread is most definitely a KEEPER!