John Frusciante’s Kay K-230 Acoustic (VPRO 1994)

This guitar was seen during the infamous interview that John did with VPRO in 1994. At that time, he was living at his girlfriend’s (Toni Oswald) apartment in Venice Beach, California, as his own house burned down just a couple of months before.

The guitar that John played during the interview has no visible branding on the headstock, therefore it’s really hard to determine the exact model. Luckily, the person who owns the guitar now was kind enough to get in contact and share that it’s a Kay K-230 classical guitar.

The Guitar Today

By some extreme luck, the guitar somehow survived to this day. Apparently, the current owner bought it randomly at a used guitar store called “The Bass and Treble”, and only years after discovered that it used to belong to John – based on the scratches and the wear. By that time though there were some major changes done to the guitar – the original bridge was replaced, and a custom pickup was installed, which included adding a knob behind the bridge.

Beware though that these things are almost impossible to confirm fully, but based on the owner’s story and the photos, this does look it this could be the real thing. With that out the way, here are the photos, and you be the judge.