Guitars
Vox Virage DC Richie Sambora
4.590 €
British institution Vox is famous for its legendary amps, but the brand was also responsible for weird and cool guitar designs, a few of them even becoming part of rock history. The Phantom was played by Tom Petty and Ian Curtis, the Teardrop (or Mark VI) remains associated with Brian Jones, and the weirdest of all, the Guitorgan, capable of producing hammond organ sounds, appeared with the Counting Crows and on many film soundtracks.
In 2008, Vox decided to explore its glorious guitar past and they created a cool Phantom with built-in amp and effects. But they also created a series of professional instruments with a very cool design. They launched the guitars by endorsing prestigious artists, including Prince who did a lot of gigging with his HDC-77 and Chris Robinson (Black Crowes) who extensively toured with his Virage. Richie Sambora was also among the happy few, and this signed Virage DC was part of the Bon Jovi guitarist's vast collection.
At first glance, the Virage DC looks a smaller ES-335, but the big defining point of that model comes from the pickups. They were a Vox exclusive designed with help from DiMarzio's Steve Blutcher. Each of the two pickups presents two rails and six poles, and they can both be controlled by a switch to produce three different sounds: humbucker with boths rails on, single coil with only one of the rails, and P90 with the poles. With two pickups, you get a total of nine usable sounds out of that guitar, which is especially precious when you're working with very different sounds, like Sambora does, and don't want to lose your inspiration by trying too many guitars.
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Richie Sambora
(1959)
Band : Bon Jovi
Main guitar : Fender Stratocaster signature
Compulsory listening : Livin’ On A Prayer
Such is the history of rock: for every Mick Jagger, there is a Keith Richards. For every Steven Tyler, there is a Joe Perry. For every Robert Plant, a Jimmy Page. For every superstar that gets the crowd going, there is a moody, infinitely cool guitar player that has the singer’s back and only takes the front of stage for quick assaults of thirty seconds.
Richie Sambora joined the New Jersey band Bon Jovi in 1983, a few months after its creation. Right from the start, Sambora’s playing and personality perfectly matched the image of founding singer Jon Bon Jovi. Together, they created a songwriting duo that would come up with hard rock classics that remain mainstays of every radio station playlist. The true explosion happened in 1986 with the Slippery When Wet album, on which Sambora co-wrote nine out of ten songs, including mega-singles Livin’ On A Prayer, You Give Love A Bad Name and Wanted Dead Or Alive. The guitar hero’s virtuosic, precise and energetic playing are in full force on that album. Sambora has integrated Van Halen’s influence to his style like any soloist of the time, but he added his personal twist to it. His talent for arranging can be head on the twelve-string parts of Wanted…, the pitch shifted solo to You Give Love A Bad Name or the talkbox for Livin’ On A Prayer.
After the release of the album, the band gets huge and starts touring around the world for sold-out crowds of entranced fans. Bon Jovi’s genius is that they achieved mainstream success at several points in their career, which makes them relevant to several generations of fans. They once again topped the charts with Always in 1994, then with It’s My Life (co-written by Sambora too) in 2000. That last song earned them a new audience that still follows them to this day.
A victim of his demons, Sambora had to quit the band in 2013 in the middle of one more world tour. Since then, he has launched the RSO band with his ex Orianthi. Over time, he seems more and more interested in the Telecaster and the Esquire, whereas he was the poster boy for superstrats in the glory days of Bon Jovi. Sambora’s musical future probably has a few great surprises in store.
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