Story of Mona

Mercedes proved to be rather heavy and cumbersome, having an extended 24 fret neck and large locking tuners. She was perfect for recording sessions and I used her to record quite a number of instrumental demos on my desktop recording set up. To play live, I needed a slightly lighter version however, with the benefit of P90 pickups, which I had found to be better for capturing the nuances of slide along with the plucking of the fingers as opposed to a pick.

On a trip to Norway early in 2006 to promote the release of 'Precious Little', I decided to leave Mercedes behind, and ended up borrowing a purple Crafter Convoy FM/TPU from a woman friend who owned a music shop in Oslo. She was cheap, (the guitar that is) but not half bad. I liked her weight and her wield ability!

Jan Ingar Kviesler, a Norwegian guitar luthier, saw me playing it on an early morning TV show and was shocked. He phoned our Norwegian manager and said 'What is Jeremy doing playing a Crafter? I'll make him one to spec!'

So my wife and I met Jan at our hotel in Oslo later that day and I laid out what I wanted regarding size, weight and shape: something between Mercedes and the Crafter. Jan and I agreed on two P90 pickups and a 3-way switch. He built it for the price of the hardware (pickups, bridge, tuners etc.) which in itself came to a pretty penny!

Anyway, a couple of months later I returned to Oslo for a tour and walked away with a custom-made beauty who responded perfectly to my every pluckin' whim. The varnish was still drying on her when I played the first gig on that tour in Trondheim, Norway.

Why did I call her Mona? Well, during a fault in the drying process she developed a pattern of cracks in the varnish that resembled the Mona Lisa. Despite Jan's insistence to redo the varnish, I have kept it that way. Some people have wondered if she is vintage!

The switch from Mercedes to the other PRS »