Butch Walker says he was offered the chance to buy the legendary ‘Greeny’ Les Paul before it ended up in Kirk Hammett’s hands, but couldn’t stomach the quarter-of-a-million dollar price tag.
The 1959 LP was made famous in the hands of Fleetwood Mac founder, Peter Green, but when he retired from music in the early ’70s, Irish bluesman Gary Moore bought it off him for next to nothing.
After Moore passed away in 2011, having significantly contributed to its history, the iconic electric guitar became available for adoption. Famously, Joe Bonamassa turned down the chance to buy it and ultimately believes it's found a rightful home with the Metallica man, who has been playing it religiously since.
But Walker, a Grammy-nominated producer and songwriter who's played a hand in a string of mammoth rock hits, was also a potential suitor at the time. He’s come to wish he stumped up the cash.
“Gary Moore was one of my heroes,” he tells Guitar World. “I had an opportunity to buy Greeny before it was really making the rounds, and Kirk Hammett bought it. But I just wasn’t ready to spend $250,000 on a guitar at that stage in my life and my career.
“My buddy was a guitar broker, and it started circulating that Gary was going to sell,” he details. “It had belonged to Peter Green as well, which was cool, but I was actually more psyched that it was Gary Moore’s. I highly regret not coming up with the money somehow. Obviously, that was just a Tuesday and a lunch tab for Kirk Hammett.”
Hammett has also proven charitable with the guitar, ensuring it got a well-used third era, while also letting a host of guitar stars run their hands across its fabled fingerboard. And everyone who’s played it, from Al Di Meola and Jack White, to Adrian Smith and Jake E. Lee, has fallen head over heels with the one-of-a-kind guitar.
“I didn't want to put it down,” Lee later confessed. “I've missed it ever since!”
More of Moore’s gear recently went up for auction, with Bonamassa this time splurging on his SLO-100 tube amp head. Unfortunately for Walker, his piggy bank was emptied as he looked to recover from two studio fires in 2007 and 2018.
“I just took such a blow financially,” he says. “It makes going out and trying to replace all that stuff not so fun these days. I just shifted my mindset a little bit; I don’t need trophy guitars. I just wanted guitars for functionality. You don’t get as sentimental when everything of sentimental value is taken away from you in one day.”
Greeny has been subject to a series of reissues over the years, with the Custom Shop model finding an unlikely fan in a British alt-rock heavyweight.
Walker’s full chat with Guitar World will be published online in the coming weeks.
