MDX Guitars: The Fastest Way To A Man's Guitar Case Is Through His Shoes
We talk with John Thomas Griffith from Cowboy Mouth about the guitar he plays, a custom MDX Guitar with a suede top before following up with the man who built that guitar, MDX's Dwight Maddox. This guitar is truly one of a kind, from John's initials marking the 12th fret to glow in the dark fret inlays all the way to the color of the suede used on the body. It's a color that doesn't even exist in the US; they had to order it from Italy, where there are more or different colors and more or different heads of state.
JOHN THOMAS GRIFFITH: Hi. I’m John Thomas Griffith, and I’m the lead guitarist and pianist for the band Cowboy Mouth from New Orleans, Louisiana.
This is one of my pride and joys that Dwight made for me. It’s a -- as you can see, it’s an all-suede body. It’s all suede. Italian Corinthian suede leather, right? Actually Dwight had to send away to Italy for this exact color. We couldn’t find it in the United States. Basically, I just told him what I wanted and he put it all together in this awesome sounding guitar.
PATRICK OGLE: What’s the bridge -- Not the bridge pickup, but the neck pickup?
JOHN THOMAS GRIFFITH: The Fender Noiseless Pickups. Dwight, is that we put in here? Everything else is pretty much stock, a Fender bridge and controls. The body is made out of, ash?
DWIGHT MADDOX: Swamp ash.
JOHN THOMAS GRIFFITH: Swamp ash, and then neck is also, correct?
DWIGHT MADDOX: That’s maple...
JOHN THOMAS GRIFFITH: Maple.
DWIGHT MADDOX: ...and a rosewood fretboard.
JOHN THOMAS GRIFFITH: With a rosewood fretboard. And actually, you know, if you can just get in here but he has been nice enough to put my initials in there with the stars that I requested, and he cut them out himself by hand, and they glow in the dark.
PATRICK OGLE: [LAUGHING]
JOHN THOMAS GRIFFITH: Can’t ask any better. It doesn’t get any better than that.
DWIGHT MADDOX: I’ve done a few suede, probably 10 or 12. There’s only one I enjoy over the others. One is a color with a glow in the dark.
PATRICK OGLE: It’s difficult, you know, so I think what you make is going to be a little bit different.
DWIGHT MADDOX: Yeah. They’re all one the kind so just what you want.
JOHN THOMAS GRIFFITH: Well, the funny story is when I first met Dwight, he came to a show of ours in Jackson, Mississippi, and I had these blue suede creepers on. They were the same color that matched the guitar. At that time I didn’t have the guitar, but he came up and he had this suede Les Paul in a case. He opened it up and he goes, “First thing that it smells, I can this suede the same color as your shoes, and I said [LAUGHING] that I was sold. That’s all I needed to hear, you know, so we started working together on and he did a great job.
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