“I collaged it together on my phone, then said to my guitar tech, ‘Hey, you’re a luthier – could you make a prototype of this?’” How Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez started his own guitar company, Evil Instruments

Claudio Sanchez with his Jackhammer guitar.

In one of the standout announcements at NAMM 2025, Coheed and Cambria frontman Claudio Sanchez announced the founding of Evil Instruments, and the mini-firm’s first creation, the Jackhammer.

As someone who favors the Gibson Explorer, it’s unsurprising that the Jackhammer is an offset, with a stack of additions from Sanchez’s imagination. “It’s an amalgamation of many guitars,” he tells Guitar World.