Kurt Cobain’s Custom Mustang (Green, Jesus pickguard)

This Mustang was used by Kurt on February 14th, 1990, at Kennel Club, San Francisco, CA. The guitar was destroyed at the end of the gig, leaving the neck cleanly broken from the body.

Based on the appearance, this was one of a number of homemade guitars that Kurt and the band put together using various parts. This guitar, in particular, seemed to have a Mustang-style body finished in surf green, and a brand new neck with the headstock painted black. It also had a custom-made pickguard, with a photo of Jesus on the front.

(Kurt:) We even built a bunch of Mustangs at one time. We bought some necks, and took pieces of wood and cut out the bodies and put necks on – and they were completely out of tune. But we did a pretty good job.

(Krist:) We had this little assembly line in the garage, where we -incomprehensible- painted them.

(Kurt:) Those were all destroyed in one tour. That was about like four years ago, probably. At least.

Kurt Cobain – Nirvana Interview Seattle, August 10, 1993, by Edgar Klüsener

The Neck

The neck of this guitar ended up being picked up by a member of the audience. He was kind enough to share the story and some photos.

I originally grabbed it and their roadie took it from me and said ‘we’ll make other guitars from that’ and gave me the neck instead.

The neck plate is from a Fernandez. The remnants of the body and paint are obviously VERY crudely made. All these years I just assumed it was a cheap, off-the-rack, bottom-of-the-line Fernandez. Most likely it’s just a random neck plate used on a home made guitar and has the initials KC scratched into the chrome. The neck was probably a brand new no-name replacement neck. It has unpolished jumbo frets with no signs of wear. Position marker dots are on both edges of fretboard, typical of a cheap replacement neck- regardless of headstock orientation.

Jeff – GroundGuitar Comments, Email

Given how the neck snapped together with a part of the body, the body definitely didn’t get re-used. As Jeff said, roadie took it, so it’s possible that it is still out there somewhere.