The Legend of Slash's
Appetite for Destruction Les Paul
This Les Paul replica commonly referred as “Hunterburst” (because it had been previously owned by Alice Cooper guitarist Steve Hunter) was reportedly Slash’s first brush with a quality copy
of Gibson’s iconic guitar in and around the Appetite for Destruction period. Photo by Mark Olson
The volume of Baranet’s work was indeed
staggering. “One year that I was at Image
Guitars, I had assembled or custom made
over 150 guitars,” he recalls. “
Single-handedly. So, you know what I’m saying—
[it’s] one single guitar. I’m not going to
remember everything.”
Serial numbers and markings for replica
instruments of the day were not standardized
and provide little help in solving the mystery.
Baranet says he sometimes used customers’
birthdays, sometimes even Social Security
numbers and other combinations of digits.
Despite Baranet’s reluctance to claim the
Hunterburst, his former colleague Rist is
convinced Baranet built it.
“I worked with Max so long I know how he
does things,” Rist states. “There are certain
little trademark things I can use to spot
a Max from a mile away. There are other
trademarks with the way he does his routing.
If I open it up, I can go, ‘Yep, this is a Max.’”
. . . Enter Kris Derrig Version
Whatever the lineage of the Hunterburst, at
some point it passed out of Slash’s hands.
In general, the band had a quick excuse any
time equipment went missing. “I think the
story was that someone stole it,” Hamilton
laughs. “Which was a common story with
those guys back in those days. Things just
sort of disappeared and I didn’t even know
that they were up on my roof doing drugs
and shit.”
When Guns N’ Roses entered the stu-
dio in late 1986 to record Appetite for
Destruction, Slash was apparently playing
an assortment of guitars that did not—
according to some—include a Les Paul,
whether replica or Gibson.
“Now, I was not there in the studio, but there
are too many accounts from Slash and other
people that a lot was recorded with a black
Jackson and a red B.C. Rich,” Rist says. He
claims that most of the record was recorded
with these instruments and that the second
legendary Les Paul replica did not enter the
picture “until Slash did all of the solo stuff.”
Other sources claim a Les Paul replica was
more prominent on the album. In Stephen
