The Cult’s Billy Duffy recently sat down with Mitch Gallagher of Sweetwater Sound to discuss his storied career and his signature Gretsch White Falcon.
Duffy noted that he was first turned on to the White Falcon via Neil Young, while Brian Setzer’s work in the Stray Cats similarly piqued his interest in Gretsch guitars.
“I’ve always been fascinated with Gretsches as guitars,” Duffy said. “Visually, I always thought it was some mythical beast.”
And once he purchased his original Gretsch, he found that it more than delivered from a performance perspective.
“I was searching for a sound, and people have said to me, ‘Why a Gretsch, and not a Les Paul?'” he explained. “I said, ‘Well, if you think of a Gretsch as an SUV, you wouldn’t drive it down a race track. And you wouldn’t drive a sports car off-road. They do different things.’
“And the other final thing was that I could only afford one guitar, and that was the one. It just became synonymous with the band.”
Watch the entire interview below.