Billy Squier - Starz Guitarz

My partner, Charlie Lawing, met Billy Squier while he was touring through Memphis. Charlie met him backstage after the show and they got into that "guitar talk" thing.

He found out we did custom guitars and he mentioned how he was looking for a guitar to go with his "Emotions In Motion" album and tour. They dreamed up the Pinkmaster you see here.

Billy was tough to please and very demanding. We bent over backwards to make this dude happy and it paid off. He told me that he was soon to do the video shoot on his next release "Rock Me Through The Night", I think it was called. He said it might work out on the video and that he might use it. I thought that would be really cool but only time would tell if he would really use it.

Well, about a month later I was watching MTV (back when it was a rock and roll show!) and they mentioned that Billy Squier's new video was going to be featured that night. I watched, I waited, and then the VJ announced that Billy Squier's new video was up next.

The video started with Squier singing with no guitar at all! Great. No Guitar. But wait, what was that I saw setting in the corner of the room? It was something pink and it looked like a guitar. On the very next frames I saw it! The Pinkmaster was there, but would they ever really show it? Would anyone really ever see it? The video rolled on. you could see it here and there but if you didn't know what you were looking at you couldn't tell what it was. Frustration was beginning to set in. So close but yet so far.....

Then all of the sudden, he starts walking towards it! Is he going to pick it up? Is he? Yes, he's picking it up and yelling into the pickups and... he's putting it on! From there he preceeds to dance all over this pink bedroom with the Pinkmaster and the camera was all over the guitar, headstock and all. I was trippin' and speechless and if you know me, that'a a rare thing. If I had been the cameraman I couldn't have done it any better. It was like this commercial for the Pink "O" Master and Billy Squier was in it. No matter how big a pain in the butt he was it was worth it!

-- by: Chris Lovell