Dimebag Darrell’s Hofner HG-430LP-S Les Paul Copy

Dimebag’s first guitar was a Hofner Les Paul knockoff/copy, which he got from his father on his 11th birthday, which was on August 20, 1977. Dime was asked some years prior by his father which present he wanted, a bike or a guitar, at which point Dime chose a bike.

Dimebag started getting into metal music as the months went by, and his interest in playing the guitar increased. He eventually returned to his father and expressed that he’d like a guitar after all.

When I discovered Ace Frehley and Black Sabbath I went back to my old man and asked if I could trade my bike back for the guitar. [laughs] Actually, I didn’t ask him that, but if I was slick, that’s what I would’ve done! I didn’t get my first guitar until my next birthday. I was about 11, and he gave me a Les Paul copy and a Pignose amp.

Initially, I just used the guitar as a prop. I’d pose with it in front of a mirror in my Kiss makeup when I was skipping school. Then I figured out how to play the main riff to Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water on just the E string. 

Dimebag Darrell – the Far Beyond Driven interview: “I knew it was going to be one bad motherf**ker – refreshing, new, and that’s what it was”

Sometime in the late 70s, Dime removed the neck pickup from the guitar and installed a smoke bomb device in the pickup cavity. He apparently did this in preparation for a high-school talent show, at which he performed one of Kiss/Ace Frehley’s songs.