LELS GUITARS

Made in Eleni's last days, and given to the ward where she was cared for so well. Painted in Teenage Cancer Trust colours, and pictured with her favourite red boots and her glasses.

I don't remember much about finishing this one. I wanted to get it done before… didn't quite make it.

Seymour Duncan Antiquity neck P90, reversed control plate, treble bleed circuit, solid mahogany body, nitro finish, reliced. The neck came from an old Squier and has lived on four different guitars.

Chronologically this came before No. 1, but was the first time I'd made a guitar which I was actually happy with, and which was really playable.

Also chronologically before the TCT guitar, and an ambitious project, building on my work with the Bluebird. Hollow walnut wings, mahogany central core. The first time I'd used a Gretsch Filtertron pickup, and a Bigsby.

Also the first guitar to use my coin signature — this one is a '51 English half crown. 1951 was the first year of the Telecaster, and the year Rocket 88 was released — the first rock and roll record.

The volume and tone knobs are replicas of those on Brian May's Red Special. He inspired my first ever guitar build and continues to do so.

This was commissioned before we knew Eleni had weeks left. The project stopped.

It was this guitar that got me back on my feet again. Its recipient named the instrument himself, and wrote a song of the same name.

Eighteen months later I walked in to the BarCoe Studio to see my guitar on stage, and its owner singing the song bearing my daughter's name.

A gift, to a friend. All walnut with hollow wings, with a Seymour Duncan P90 in the neck; the central pickup selector position is wired out of phase.

My first attempt at a burst — it originally had a tobacco finish, but I was never happy with it, so took it back for some touch-up work and gave him back a totally different looking guitar.

It has a strange, ethereal reverb to it when played.

Telecaster-shaped, but there the similarities fall away. Walnut core, hollow Siberian ash wings with a flamed finish, Filtertron neck pickup, and another '51 coin pickup selector roundal.

This one carries a small bullseye on one of the fret dots which gives away the intended recipient: Sir Roger Daltrey. Made as a gift, for his support of us during Eleni's illness and beyond.

He said it should go to somewhere more deserving. I presented it to the school where Eleni grew up, here in Abu Dhabi.

The Ellamy Blues Band — Ebb: a collection of military officers and a civil servant who should know better, who have played together for longer than our talent suggests.

This was made for our lead axeman. Mahogany centre, hollow walnut wings, and a built-in treble booster, built by Nigel Knight of Knight Audio Technologies — he makes Brian May's gear, too.

Eleni's form tutor in her sixth form — a taciturn Mancunian who Eleni took to task relentlessly over various rules she disagreed with. He is also obsessed with Springsteen.

This was made as a tribute to Bruce's own ‘Mutt’. The ash body was aged by hand over weeks. Hardware is Springsteen-correct. I even carved out a space under the pickguard for pickups that were never fitted.

Built from what was discarded. Made for the man who builds dreams. Sean's guitar.

A salvaged construction board found on the roadside — dust, dried concrete, bent nails and all. Stabilised with epoxy, dyed a faded red, fitted with hand-aged hardware. It was Eleni who stopped her father in his tracks: “This is the wood, Dad.” She chose the colour, too. It later emerged that red was Sean's favourite colour. Eleni, it seemed, already knew.

Many of the original nails stayed — sanded back until smooth and unobtrusive, but still visible. Scars left in place. History preserved.

Inscribed on the rear of the neck, in Arabic: “You are where you are supposed to be. Live your life to honour those who are not.”

He rang one day and asked, “Dad — can you make me a guitar?”

Freddie learned to play when he was younger, but had grown apart from the instrument. After Eleni died, and in his first year at university — one of Eleni's wishes was that he must attend, despite his first year beginning only weeks after she left — he began to play again.

This guitar does not carry a serial number. It is not a commission, nor a client piece. Freddie's Guitar — built by his father, for him, with his sister close enough to guide every cut, every carve, every stroke of sandpaper.

Eleni is close on all of these builds. With this one, she was more than that. Every carve, every stroke of the sandpaper, every detail is her, living through her father's hands and guiding them. He did not think when he built it. He just was.

The three-way selector switch sits atop an 1897 half crown coin, carried by Great Uncle Jack on every mission he flew during the Second World War as a rear gunner in B-25 Mitchell light bombers. He clung to this coin as a token through every sortie, and he came home.

Hidden beneath the Gotoh In-Tune bridge plate is a small recess. Inside, it carries a small vial of ash, and a note from a father to his daughter. The central bridge screw passes through both. Every note played by Freddie will be heard, by his sister.

The tenth Lels Guitar. But in this instance, always the first.

Built over five months for a session musician who needed an instrument capable of everything — every genre, every gig, every studio call.

The body was shaped from a single block of walnut, with every contour carved, sanded, and refined by hand. The finish — Angelus leather dyes layered over the natural walnut, sealed with Danish oil and brought to a soft lustre with Langlow wax — gives the wood an almost geological quality, as though the colour emerged from within the grain itself.

Push-push pots on both volume and tone unlock four distinct voicings from two humbuckers — without a single additional switch cluttering the face. A built-in Guyker parametric EQ, engaged via push-pull pot, lets Pedro sculpt his tone for any room or any style. A Colombian coin sits mounted on the kill switch — a personal detail for the musician this guitar was made for.