Something happened about halfway through the Return of KISS Tour. Later comments from Paul suggest that the stock guitars he got from Ibanez—the backup PS10:s—didn’t meet his standards, and in their stead a couple of non-Ibanez guitars came in. (The cracked mirror PS10 was still number one.) The guitar shown here first showed up backstage in Knoxville, Tennessee on September 12. It looks like nothing ever seen on a KISS stage. The body shape is obviously Explorer-like but it has a mirror overlay that covers the entire guitar and the identity of the brand is indiscernible as the logo on the headstock had been covered by a small piece of black tape.
But the details of the body and the truss rod cover tell us that this was a 1979 Gibson Explorer II. The Explorer II was, along with the Flying V II, an attempt to update the 1958 “design of the future” and generate new sales. The tag line for this new line was "A new look for a new decade". (For some reason the re-introduced Explorer from 1976 still hadn't made it into the Gibson catalog but by 1980 the Explorer II was finally part of the guitars on offer, the first time the Explorer shape was part of the Gibson catalog.) The Explorer II had a slightly odd 5-ply body of walnut and maple with the choice of which wood was the "top". Paul's version here is a walnut top. The truss rod cover had a stylized variation of the guitar’s catalog name: E/2.
Three minor details about this guitar. First, Paul had the strap button moved to the back of the heel on this guitar much as he had on the Firebird I, despite Gibson lauding its new ultra-safe "Posi-Lok" strap button. (The 1976 Explorer didn't get this modification, it just got a screw-in loop.) Second, the catalog version had a more elaborate tailpiece (the TP-6) which allowed for fine tuning, while Paul's guitar has a more standard Tune-o-matic tailpiece. Judging by vintage guitar sales of this model it seems as if at least some guitars left the factory with the bridge/tailpiece configuration that Paul had, perhaps early in the production run. Of course, changing the tailpiece is a very simple modification, especially if you're removing all the hardware anyway to fit a mirror overlay. Third, Paul replaced the stock black speed knobs with gold speed knobs.
More relevant for the actual use of the guitar, Paul probably had the original "super hot" Series VII bridge humbucker replaced by a chrome-covered humbucker of unknown make. I say probably because we really don't know. Gibson humbucker covers usually had one line of pole pieces exposed and the examples of Explorer II that had humbucker covers had gold ones. A gold pickup cover would have matched the hardware perfectly so this chrome humbucker was probably something else. (Of course, the chrome pickup cover blended nicely with the mirror top.) But the humbucker under that pickup cover could have been anything, even the Series VII.
The Explorer II made its live debut a few days later on September 16. The first two photos are of poor quality but at least the hockey stick headstock is visible and as far as we know Paul only had one guitar with that type pf headstock in 1979. The first really good photo of the Explorer II is from Chicago, Illinois on September 22. As the photo shows Paul had a capo at the 2nd fret which was for I Was Made For Lovin' You.
It's a little hard to say for sure but it looks as if Paul had made a change to the bridge pickup by September 28. In the photo from Bloomington, Minnesota the bridge pickup doesn't look quite as shiny as it did backstage in Knoxville, Tennesse. At least not to my eyes. By October 8 we can say for sure that there had been a change, the bridge humbucker now had visible pole-pieces. Of course, we still can't say anything about what that humbucker was, just that it no longer looked the same as it did on September 12.
Alas, there were more wide-ranging changes afoot. A few weeks later the Explorer II had gotten a new set of pickups. (There are no photos of the guitar for over a week which would had left plenty of time for this modification.) The photos I have from Vancouver, BC, Canada are inconclusive but when the band played Seattle, Washingotn on November 21 the Explorer II had gotten a set of active pickups. The particular photos shown here aren't detailed enough to say what the pickups were, but there is a Kevin Bohner photo from Fresno, California on November 27 that seems to show that the new set of pickups were EMG (even though it is exceedingly hard to verify the reflief logo of these early "overlend" pickups).
So, why tape over the logo on the headstock? The initial thought might be that it was a way to sidestep any contractual obligations to Ibanez, but considering the almost blatant use of Hamers during the latter part of the Return of KISS tour that seems unlikely. Why bother covering up the fact that he played a Gibson while his Hamers were plain to see? My guess, and it is just a guess, is that Paul might have been talking with Hamer about a possible endorsement or sponsorship. Paul was into Hamers anyway—he said so quite explicitly in some interviews at the time—and they were trying to revive the spirit of the original Gibson build quality. Everyone involved in guitars at the time probably knew about Paul's involvement with Ibanez on the PS10 so that was a given, but since Paul had started playing custom Hamer Standards it might have looked a little "bad" if Paul had turned around and played a Gibson. If he was looking for an endorsement deal that is. Otherwise, why bother?
The Explorer II only lasted until the end of the 1979 tour but, curiously, it seemed to get a larger role during the very last show in Toledo, Ohio on December 16. As the photos below show he used it early in the show as evidence by the costume. In a 1980 interview in Sounds magazine Paul claimed he hadn't been particularly impressed with the guitar and after the end of the Return of KISS Tour the 1979 Gibson Explorer II joins the ever-growing ranks of guitars that passed through Paul's hands and then simply vanished into the mists.
Mobile, Alabama December 12, 1979
Photo by Thomas Williams
