TOYS IN THE ATTIC

A decade-by-decade guide to Joe Perry's amps – and exactly where he stands on modeling

- ANDREW DALY

SOME GUITAR GREATS are historically associated with one guitar and one amp. For instance, you've got your Brian May (Red Special into a Vox AC30), your Angus Young (Gibson SG into a Marshall) and your Eddie Van Halen (Frankenstein into a 5150).

But Joe Perry is not one of those guitar greats. This guy plugs a host of iconic guitars into all sorts of amps; well, let's make that all sorts of tube amps. Beyond that, he likes to play the field.

“I'm not an amp snob,” he says. “I won't say I can't use this or that amp. I'm gonna give everything a try. You never know what you're gonna discover. Some of the oddest guitars and amps I have are ones I've used on some of my favorite songs. You just don't know.”

It's that philosophy that has kept Perry merrily bouncing from amp to amp. Be it Ampeg, Music Man, Fender or Alessandro, he has tried — and loved (to varying degrees) — them all. Still, as amp-curious as he is, he always seems to come home to Marshall.

“You can put Marshall down for every decade,” he says, foreshadowing the list below. “There'd be times in the studio or for a one-off gig, and you'd have to rent something, and it was usually a Marshall. Back in the day, it'd be a roll of the dice because you didn't know if they were taken care of. But if you were lucky, and you got a good one, they were great.”

1970s