For obvious reasons, Paul McCartney is one of music's best interview subjects, and GQ recently caught up with the former Beatle for a fascinating, wide-ranging conversation that touched on the coronavirus, the music industry, his "Carpool Karaoke" appearance and a host of other topics.
One topic that made repeated appearances was McCartney's guitar collection. At one point, McCartney discussed how Jimi Hendrix inspired him to purchase one of his favorite guitars of all time.
“I have an Epiphone Casino, which is one of my favorites,” he said. “It’s not the best guitar, but I bought it in the 1960s. I went into a shop on Charing Cross Road and asked the guys if they had a guitar that would feed back, because I was very much into Jimi Hendrix and that kind of thing.
“I loved that kind of stuff and so I wanted a guitar that was going to give me feedback, as none of the others could. So they showed me the Casino. Because it’s got a hollow body, it feeds back easier. I had a lot of fun with that. That’s the guitar I played the 'Taxman' solo on and it’s also the guitar I played the riff on 'Paperback Writer' with.”
McCartney also discussed, and showed off, some of his other favorite guitars - including a beautiful 1954 butterscotch Telecaster and a Taylor Richie Sambora acoustic - in the interview.
You can read the full interview over at gq-magazine.co.uk.
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