“He says to me, ‘You’re a legend.’ I said, ‘Are you kidding? You’re a legend. You’re the new Leo Fender. You’re the new Les Paul. You’re the new Orville Gibson’”: Randy Bachman on the guitar builder who’s up there with the greats of the industry

Randy Bachman plays a Goldtop Les Paul onstage in 2025.

Randy Bachman has hailed Paul Reed Smith as one of the undisputed “legends” of electric guitar making who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Leo Fender and Orville Gibson.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Bachman says he bumped into Smith over the holiday season last year, and that Smith said he might just have a new guitar that Bachman would love. If it has the initials PRS on the headstock, and birds on the fingerboard, chances are he will.