The star is a body shape of

solid body thumb , Sound sample of solid-body electric guitar. A solid-body musical instrument is a string instrument such as a guitar, bass or violin built without its normal sound box and relying on an electromagnetic pickup system to directly detect th ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

, particularly favoured for heavy metal music. It blends some features of the

Flying V The Gibson Flying V is an electric guitar model introduced by Gibson in 1958. The Flying V offered a radical, "futuristic" body design, much like its siblings: the Explorer, which was released the same year, and the Moderne, which was designed ...

and

Gibson Explorer The Gibson Explorer is a type of electric guitar model by Gibson guitars, released in 1958. The Explorer offered a radical, "futuristic" body design, much like its siblings: the Flying V, which was released the same year, and the Moderne, which ...

, both of them much older designs.

Eddie van Halen Edward Lodewijk Van Halen ( , ; January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020) was an American musician and songwriter. He was the guitarist, keyboardist, backing vocalist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Van Halen, which he co-founded along ...

hacked his explorer-shaped Ibanez Destroyer to make it look like a shark around 1977, so he is credited as the inventor of the star-shaped guitar. Wayne Charvel refined the design and those Charvel Stars 79-83 are among the most valued instruments of the brand. The earlier had strat headstocks, later on replaced with the Jackson pointy headstock.

Models

Jackson

The earliest known star bodies were built by

Jackson Guitars Jackson is a manufacturer of electric guitars and electric bass guitars that bears the name of its founder, Grover Jackson. The company was acquired by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation in 2002, which manufactures Jackson-branded guitar ...

, who produced both through-neck custom models and commercial versions with bolt-on necks. More recently, Jackson have produced the Jackson Kelly Star KSXT/KS-2 with a similar body shape to the Star, combining the "front" half of a Jackson Kelly with the asymmetric pointed 'V' ends of the

Jackson Randy Rhoads The Jackson Rhoads is a model of electric guitar, originally commissioned by guitarist Randy Rhoads and produced by Jackson Guitars. Origin The Concorde Randy Rhoads' first Jackson prototype was the white, pinstriped, asymmetrical Flying V ...

. This body shape was only in production for a short time in the early 2000s, with its market niche now being served by the Jackson Warrior, which is less distinctly "star"-shaped at first glance but has a similar general structure. Jackson now makes a "Gus G." signature star in 3 levels, the JS32 bolt on import, the X series neck thru import, and a US made neck thru model.

Other major makers

A ''star'' body produced by

Kramer Guitars Kramer Guitars is an American manufacturer of electric guitars and basses. Kramer produced aluminum-necked electric guitars and basses in the 1970s and wooden-necked guitars catering to hard rock and heavy metal musicians in the 1980s; Kramer i ...

was known as the ''Voyager''.

Charvel Guitars Charvel is a brand of electric guitars founded in the 1970s by Wayne Charvel in Azusa, California, Azusa, California and originally headquartered in Glendora, California, Glendora, California. Since 2002, Charvel has been under the ownership of Fe ...

have also produced some model of star profile, for example the star model of the Charvel Desolation series. The

Dean ML The Dean ML is an electric guitar made by Dean Guitars in 1977 along with its counterparts, the Dean V, Dean Cadillac and Dean Z. It has an unusual design, with a V-shaped headstock and V-shaped tailpiece. It was popularized by the guitarist Di ...

is a similar design to the star, but differs in having symmetrical tail horns (or ''wings'' as they are known in

and similar designs). The

Washburn Guitars Washburn Guitars is an American brand and importer of guitars, mandolins, and other string instruments, originally established in 1883 in Chicago, Illinois. The Washburn name is controlled by U.S. Music Corp., a subsidiary of Canadian corporate ...

''Dime'' (or ''Dimebag'', after

Dimebag Darrell Darrell Lance Abbott (August 20, 1966 – December 8, 2004), best known by his stage name Dimebag Darrell, was an American musician. He was the guitarist of the heavy metal bands Pantera and Damageplan, both of which he co-founded alongside his ...

who popularised the Dean design) uses the Dean ML profile.

ESP guitars is a Japanese guitar manufacturer, primarily focused on the production of electric guitars and Bass guitar, basses. They are based in both Tokyo and Los Angeles, with distinct product lines for each market. ESP Company manufactures instruments ...

have the RS series guitar, similar to the star but with a different headstock. It is made by their Edwards guitars subdivision and is only sold in Japan. ESP also produces Gus G and Roope Latvala signature models which have a star shape.

Ibanez is a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, as ...

built star-shaped models in the mid-1980s in its DT and DG series. As with most other "star" guitars, the body was a variant of the "Explorer" shape (called "Destroyer" by Ibanez) that had a roughly triangular section of its rear end cut out. Since 2008 there's also the Ibanez Xiphos, a new x-shape looking like the Jackson Warrior with reversed cut edges. The first prototype was built for the

Necrophagist Necrophagist was a German technical death metal band founded and fronted by guitarist and vocalist Muhammed Suiçmez. The band used baroque music-influenced compositions paired with extreme metal drumming. The name originates from the Greek ro ...

guitarist as a signature model. B.C. Rich have a star-shaped model called ''Ironbird'', as well as the more slender ''Stealth'' (there's also a 2008 'Stealth' from Schecter, but that's a V shape).

Custom designs

The original Jackson ''star'' shape remains popular with home constructors and commercial custom-builders.

Rosa Hurricane

The guitar at left in the image at right is a Rosa Hurricane of ''star'' design, date and country of manufacture unknown. Two high-output

humbucker A humbucking pickup, humbucker, or double coil, is a type of guitar pickup that uses two wire coils to cancel out the noisy interference picked up by coil pickups. In addition to electric guitar pickups, humbucking coils are sometimes used in d ...

s, conventional three-position pickup change switch, single passive volume and tone controls. This is because the guitar was built to be played loud to extremely loud and dirty, with most of the tone shaping being done by

guitar effect An effects unit or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing. Common effects include distortion/overdrive, often used with electric guitar in el ...

s or the

guitar amplifier A guitar amplifier (or amp) is an electronic device or system that strengthens the electrical signal from a pickup on an electric guitar, bass guitar, or acoustic guitar so that it can produce sound through one or more loudspeakers, which a ...

itself. Scale length is just over 25½" (the longest common scale length for electric guitars) but the body of this example was routed for about 26½", a serious defect which rendered the guitar untunable. Originally equipped with a

Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously ...

style

tremolo arm A vibrato system on a guitar is a mechanical device used to temporarily change the pitch of the strings. Instruments without a vibrato have other bridge and tailpiece systems. They add vibrato to the sound by changing the tension of the string ...

, this particular instrument has been converted to hard-tail ("blocked"), which has solved the tuning problem and also improved tuning stability and provided even more sustain. ''Rosa'' was a

house brand A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with brands from other businesses. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by th ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n importer Rose Music. This model was intended as an entry level electric guitar.

Similar body shapes

The name ''star'' has been given to several other guitar shapes unrelated to the Jackson body shape. One example was the guitars played by Gerry Shephard from 1972 in

The Glitter Band The Glitter Band are a glam rock band from England, who initially worked as Gary Glitter's backing band under that name from 1973, when they then began releasing records of their own. They were unofficially known as the Glittermen on the first f ...

, the backing band of

Gary Glitter Paul Francis Gadd (born 8 May 1944), best known by his stage name Gary Glitter, is an English former singer, songwriter, and record producer. He achieved success during the glam rock era of the 1970s and 1980s, and his career ended after he w ...

. These had bodies in the shape of a regular

five-pointed star A five-pointed star (☆), geometrically an equilateral concave decagon, is a common ideogram in modern culture. Comparatively rare in classical heraldry, it was notably introduced for the flag of the United States in the Flag Act of 1777 and ...

, in keeping with the

glam rock Glam rock is a style of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s and was performed by musicians who wore outrageous costumes, makeup, and hairstyles, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists drew on diver ...

genre of the band. The first, gold in colour, was made by

Chris Eccleshall Christopher J. Eccleshall (26 May 1948 – 13 August 2020) was an English luthier, guitar designer, guitar dealer and authorised repairer of C. F. Martin & Company, Martin, Gibson Guitar Corporation, Gibson and Guild Guitar Company, Guild guitar ...

. It was destroyed in a baggage handling accident; the second, silver in colour, was built by John Birch to replace the first. Steve Carr built a star guitar for

Paul Stanley Paul Stanley (born Stanley Bert Eisen; January 20, 1952) is an American musician who is the co-founder, frontman, rhythm guitarist and co-lead vocalist of the hard rock band Kiss. He is the writer or co-writer of many of the band's most popular ...

Kiss A kiss is the touch or pressing of one's lips against another person or an object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely. Depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, romance, sexual attraction, ...

around 1980, basically looking like the Glitter Band's body turned 180 degrees, featuring a sparkly body. It can be seen in the German "Talk To Me/She's So European" TV-performance.{{Cite web, url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKA91QUakrs, title = - YouTube, website =

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

A copy of the John Birch star guitar, also silver in colour and produced by

First Act First Act was a manufacturer of musical instruments and musical learning toys, that produced guitars, bass guitars, guitar and bass accessories, drum sets, percussion instruments, and amplifiers. Mark Izen founded the company in 1995; its online ...

, has more recently been played by

Martin Gore Martin Lee Gore (born 23 July 1961) is an English songwriter, musician, singer, record producer and DJ. He is one of the founding members of the electronic rock band Depeche Mode and is the band's main songwriter. He is the band's guitarist an ...

, touring with

Depeche Mode Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in Basildon, Essex, in 1980. The band currently consists of Dave Gahan (lead vocals and co-songwriting) and Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, co-lead vocals and main songwriting). Depeche ...

BC Rich B.C. Rich is an American brand of acoustic and electric guitars and bass guitars founded by Bernardo Chavez Rico in 1969. History The company started making electric guitars in the 1970s. In the following decade B.C. Rich gained a broad expos ...

have their own 'star' shapes. The Ironbird is a much more pointy version of the Star; it holds similar features to a

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

Razorback The feral pig is a domestic pig which has gone feral, meaning it lives in the wild. They are found mostly in the Americas and Australia. Razorback and wild hog are Americanisms applied to feral pigs or boar-pig hybrids. Definition A feral pi ...

. The Stealth is another.

ESP Guitars is a Japanese guitar manufacturer, primarily focused on the production of electric guitars and Bass guitar, basses. They are based in both Tokyo and Los Angeles, with distinct product lines for each market. ESP Company manufactures instruments ...

have several star guitars, the

Roope Latvala Roope Juhani Latvala (born 25 June 1970) is a Finnish guitarist, best known as the former rhythm guitarist for the band Children of Bodom from 2003 to 2015 and the co-lead electric guitarist for Sinergy. He was also one of the founding members ...

and

Gus G Kostas Karamitroudis (born 12 September 1980), better known as Gus G, is a Greek heavy metal guitarist. He currently plays with his band Firewind. He has also played in Mystic Prophecy, Nightrage, Arch Enemy, Dream Evil and Ozzy Osbourne' ...

signature models in North America, and the

Akira Takasaki is a Japanese musician. He is best known as the lead guitarist and sole constant member of the heavy metal band Loudness. He is also the guitarist of the band Lazy, with which he first rose to prominence in the 1970s. Career He started his ...

Random Star, Syu Crying Star, Anchang signature, and George Lynch Kamikaze Star in Japan.

References

External links

Rob Cavestany's Custom Shop Jackson Star Body
a Jackson through-neck, with photos.

Martin Gore's First Act ''Star'' guitar
Electric guitars