The Cult’s Billy Duffy is featured in the June issue of Premier Guitar, where he gave an extensive interview about his band, his sound and his gear.
Midway through the QxA, the longtime White Falcon player talked about where he got his original Gretsch G7593.
“It’s a mid-’70s White Falcon. I ordered it in 1982 in England — I had to go and score it from a guitar shop on Denmark Street in London. In those days, you’d put down the deposit, and then they’d go and find it. Then it was weeks of ‘Where’s my White Falcon?’ ‘It’s coming, it’s coming!'” Duffy said.
“Now, I already had a doublecutaway Gretsch, a stereo model, also from the ’70s. It had the same neck, same [Bigsby] whammy bar setup, the square inlays on the neck — and I like those all right — but the body isn’t very thick. Those guitars are more like a [Gibson] 335. So I really still wanted a single-cutaway, which were hard to find in England. Basically, the one that became my trademark guitar is actually my second White Falcon. I just liked the single-cutaway better — it was fatter.
“My understanding at that time was that all the single-cutaway Falcons were custom-ordered, and it was the double-cutaway that was the production model. Now, because you had to order them, they were all slightly different. Mine has a sort of patch on the back to protect the guitar from your belt buckle — from your country pants [laughs]. But the other one from the same era doesn’t.”
The Cult released Choice of Weapon earlier this month, their first new studio album in five years.
For more information and a list of tour dates, check out The Cult’s official website. To read the full interview, click here.
