“This black Les Paul Custom is a ‘57 re-issue Black Beauty and has a great story. In 2006 The Cult went to do a gig in Bulgaria, at a place called Kavarna, on the coast and we could only carry a limited amount of equipment on the plane. So the promoter of the show had a rep in Germany who was a guitar collector and he brought a couple of his own guitars along for me, one of which was this Black Les Paul Custom re-issue.
Anyway, I carried a couple of guitars on the plane, my White Falcon and another of my Les Pauls, but on the plane the pick-up broke on the Les Paul. So I had to do the whole gig with this borrowed guitar off the German guy but I liked it so much I ended up trading one of my White Falcons for it later on.
These days when I want the Les Paul sound in recording this ’57 Les Paul is the one that I usually use.”
Billy Duffy – January 2013