Brian May's Guitars, Amps & Gear List

This is the guitar that Brian built together with his father Harold in the early 1960s, and the one that he used as his main recording instrument ever since. It is one of the most unique guitars in the history of rock music, because it’s the only guitar that was actually built by the guitarist himself from scratch, and used on albums and songs that reached billions of people at this point.

The inspiration for building the Red Special, as Brian explained, came from the first acoustic guitar the he ever had – an Egmond parlor guitar. Brian played this acoustic for a while, even made a small pickup in order to “electrify” it at some point, but eventually together with his father, who was an electrical engineer, decided to try and make an actual electric guitar.

The inspiration for the Red Special came from this little guitar. It was a present to me from my mom and dad for me 7 birthday – or so (around 1954).

There came a point when me and my dad said – well, it would be nice to have an electric gutiar, instead of this acoustic guitar. But – we had no money, we were really poor.

Brian May’s Red Special – The Book Launch

This is the guitar that Brian often used to play Crazy Little Thing Called Love on tour with the Queen. He would usually start out on an acoustic Ovation guitar, and then in the second verse had his guitar tech hand him this black 1978 Telecaster.

On this guitar he would play the little fills in the verses and the first solo. Interestingly, during live concerts, Brain would switch back to his Red Special, and finish the song on that guitar – even though on the original recording it was all done on a Fender.

As Brian explained, this 1978 Fender Telecaster is not the actual guitar that he used for the recording of Crazy Little Thing Called Love. The Telecaster was only used by him on live tours.

This is the first replica ever made of the Red Special. The guitar was made by John Birch in 1975 and became widely known after its appearance in the “We Will Rock You” music video.

Unfortunately, Brian didn’t really warm up to the guitar, because it didn’t sound like the original one, despite the fact it had the exact same pickups which he kept as spare. He did use it for a while as his backup guitar, until around 1982 when he threw it out of frustration and ended up damaging it.

I met John through Tony Iommi, and at that point, I had no proper spare, which was a very difficult situation to be in, because if I broke a string I’d have to pick up the Stratocaster or Les Paul, which would sound totally different from my guitar.

So we came up with the idea of making a replica of my guitar and I had three spare pickups that I’d bought as back-ups, so he built it around those. There were problems [laughs] – it turned out that the pickups didn’t have the warmth that mine had and the guitar was made of different materials, so it really didn’t have the sustain.

Brian May on 9 Queen guitars that aren’t his Red Special (plus his Vox AC-30)

Brian used this guitar shortly on tour around 1974-1975. It was mainly just a backup guitar for his Red Special, but it seems that Brian didn’t really like it all that much.

I used to think the Stratocaster would be the thing when I got one. Always thought when I got enough money to get one of those, that will be it. Then, when I got enough, I didn’t like it. The same with the Les Paul. I thought the Les Paul would be it.

6 July 1976 – Circus Magazine interview with Brian May

There’s really not a lot of info or footage of this guitar, so it’s largely a mystery. From the few photos that we have, it appears to be a Les Paul deluxe with two mini-humbuckers, with the body finished in red sunburst.

Brian carried this Stratocaster as a backup on tour around 1974, which was before he had any replicas made of the Red Special.

Based on the maple neck and the headstock shape, the guitar was probably made sometime in the 1970s. Obviously, Brian started using it around 1973, so it had to have been made before that. The guitar also seems to have a clear finish, because the wood grain seems to be visible on some of the footage.

But, aside from what can be concluded from the photos and the footage, not much can be said about the guitar. It’s unknown whether Brian still has it, or whether he got rid of it after 1974.

Brian started using this Flying V as a backup for his Red Special in 1982 after the John Birch replica was damaged. Like most of Brian’s backup guitars back in those days, this guitar too ended up being just a necessity and was ditched right after the Hot Space Tour.

I also have a Flying V, which is a recent acquisition. I got it because I smashed up my Birch guitar. I got very frustrated with it one night and uncharacteristically threw it offstage. It happened to be a very high stage, and it smashed into lots of pieces.

Guitar Player magazine – January 1983, Interview by Jas Obrecht

Based on the few photos that are available of Brian with the guitar, his Flying V had a tobacco sunburst finish, white body binding, a stop-tail bridge, and two humbuckers with no metal covers.

This is one of the more recent replicas that Andrew Guyton made for Brian. The guitar got its nickname “Badger” from a little badger inlay on the pickguard. In case you’re wondering why – Brian has long advocated for the protection of wildlife and is fond of badgers in particular.

The guitar is, of course, heavily based on the original Red Special, but it features some significant changes in this case. This replica features a carved maple arched top with an “F” hole – which was actually something Brian wanted to do on the original Red Special, but had no proper tools at that time. It also has a different bridge style, and it doesn’t have a tremolo but a fixed brass piece.

Brian uses this guitar to play the song “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” live. One thing that helps him with that, apart from the fact that the guitar is semi-acoustic, is that it has a piezo pickup installed below the bridge. This pickup makes the guitar sound almost like an acoustic when plugged into an amp.

Brian used this guitar on the song “Long Away” from Queen’s 1978 album A Day at the Races. According to him, the inspiration for the song came from just playing this specific guitar.

I used this on Long Away. Funnily enough I think I bought it because I liked the pickups, but I fell in love with the guitar once I started playing around with it and the song materialised. The guitar actually inspired the riff that powers the song.

Brian May on 9 Queen guitars that aren’t his Red Special

This guitar is produced by Burns and features the exact same pickups that Brian used in his Red Special – the Tri-Sonics. This is, as noted in the quote above, the reason why Brian purchased the guitar in the first place. Also, it’s the exact same model that Elvis Presley pled in the movie “Spin Out”.

Greg Fryer made this guitar for Brian in 1997, and ever since then, Brian has been using it as a backup for his original Red Special.

I wrote to Brian’s management with the objective of making for him the most accurate replica of his guitar to date, a guitar that he would consider worthy of using as a spare. After meeting with Brian in July 1996 to discuss the project, I then spent a very intense eighteen months thoroughly researching the parts materials components building techniques needed, obtaining everything I needed, and then building the three replicas at my workshop in Sydney.

Red Special restoration 1998

This is one of three replicas that Greg made for May, the other two being “Paul” and “George Burns” (all three guitars have nicknames). According to Greg, “John” and “George Burns” remained with Bryan, while he got the keep the “Paul”.

This is a replica of the Red Special built by Andrew Guyton. It’s one of the two prototypes built by Andrew in 2004 before he started producing a limited run of these guitars that could be purchased by the public.

Andrew started building the guitar in 2003, after having measured the original Red Special, and after having it X-rayed so that all the cavities of the body could be seen as well.

It was arranged for the guitar to be x-rayed at St.Barts hospital in London. With this new information. My aim was to make possibly the closest replica yet, not only had the x-rays shown the size and shape of the cavities, they also showed the method of securing the knife-edge and body/neck construction that simply hadn’t been available by general examination of the guitar.

The story of the Guyton Red Special

This is one of three Red Special replicas built by Greg Fryer in late 1997. Brian kept two of those three, nicknamed “John” and “George Burns”, while the third one, nicknamed “Paul” remained with Greg.

This “George Burns” replica is distinguishable from the “John” by its color. It seems that Greg either used a different finish, which resulted in more of a yellowish tint, or that this was just a result of using a different type of wood for the body.

In the early days, up until the 2010s, Brian used this guitar as his main drop-D tuning guitar, on songs such as “Fat Bottomed Girls”. In most recent years, he’s most often been using the Andrew Guyton green replica for that purpose and keeping the “George Burns” as a backup.