KISS’s Tommy Thayer has one of the coolest jobs in the world: he gets to hop up on stage every night and occupy the persona of the Spaceman, one of KISS’s four classic characters. Although the role was originally inhabited by Ace Frehley, and Thayer is mindful of paying tribute to the classic guitar parts that came before, as time has gone on Tommy has brought more and more of his own personality to the role. Part of this is injecting his own spirit into the solos of classic tracks without totally changing their original intentions. Part of this is in his songwriting, playing and vocal contributions to newer KISS material.

And part of it is in Thayer’s choice of guitars. His two Epiphone Les Paul models are informed by his own gear preferences within the context of the Spaceman persona. The latest, the “White Lightning” Les Paul, has classic Les Paul appointments like a Mahogany body with Maple top, Mahogany neck, Rosewood fingerboard and a LockTone Tune-o-Matic/Stopbar configuration, with flashier touches like all chrome hardware, white knobs and a Jimmy Page-esque ‘covered neck/uncovered bridge’ pickup configuration. Thayer uses the Seymour Duncan JB model in both the bridge and neck positions. When I interviewed Thayer recently for my guitar blog, I set aside a few minutes to talk Seymour Duncan as well.

Tell me about your latest Epiphone signature guitar. 

It’s a striking guitar and everyone who sees it reacts the same way. It looks really flashy and it really pops. I was thinking about a new Les Paul to play on the road with KISS, and our drummer Eric Singer is a really big guitar collector so he suggested a white guitar. We came to the conclusion that a metallic white guitar would be great, a real Alpine White with a metallic flake in it. He also suggested chrome hardware. Originally the idea was to do a chrome binding as well but they had a hard time figuring out how to do a chrome binding. So we went back and forth and in the end I ended up doing a three-ply binding, the kind they mostly put on Customs. And I’m really happy with the way that looked.

And you’re using the Seymour Duncan JB humbucker in both the bridge and neck positions.

Yeah. With regards to the Seymour Duncan part of it, the pickups in the bridge and neck positions are Seymour Duncan JBs. I switched to Seymour Duncans last year because one day I was experimenting and I talked to my guitar tech and said “Hey, I’d like to try a JB just to compare it to the other pickups I was using before, for the last several years.” And I ended up liking it more all of a sudden. But that happens when you’re experimenting around: something appeals to you that’s new and different. So I put them back in all of my guitars and I’m really happy with it. It should be noted though that I played Seymour Duncan JB pickups years ago, 15, 20 years ago in other things I was doing before KISS so I was familiar with it, but when I came into KISS, the guitars that Gibson were doing had the Gibson pickups in them. And I ended up going with those for many years until I tried the JBs again last year and ended up liking them more. So that’s why we ended up putting them in the “White Lightning” Epiphone signature model.

When I threw a JB into my Les Paul about a year ago it was like ‘That’s it!’ It’s like a key ingredient to so many great tones, from 80s stuff to classic grunge albums, thrash metal… 

I think it’s a nice place in terms of it’s not too high in output like a lot of pickups that people are using. I tend to like a pickup that has a little less output. It’s a little more distinct, not clean but a little more distinct-sounding, and then we can crank the amp up a little more if we need it to drive a little more. But I like a pickup with less output, closer to an original PAF. It just seems to have more of a true organic tone to it, which I like.

Visit Tommy Thayer’s official website, tommythayer.com.

How do you and Paul Stanley work together as a guitar team?

Well, very well! I believe going back to the 70s with KISS the idea with these guys was always about guitar parts that really compliment each other with different voicings in different ranges that you can play together to really broaden the sound. Often Paul would play root chords down low and what Ace did and what I do is to play a higher voicing, and that’s a big part of the KISS sound. And Paul will play more of the Stones-y suspended chords in a song like “Rock And Roll All Nite” or “Strutter,” so there’s always that dynamic of playing not the same chord voicing but relative voicings, often an octave apart. And Paul plays a lot of very different, interesting chords. If you really analyse a song like “Cold Gin” and what Paul’s playing, the main riff is in that kind of Free, “All Right Now” kind of voicing but Paul’s playing these interesting chords down in the A position that you wouldn’t normally think of. Or even in “Black Diamond” he plays these minor chords you wouldn’t normally think he’d be doing. He’s very innovative and creative, and he does a lot of things that are outside of the norm. And he’s got his own rhythm style too which is not as exacting but it really works.