ERIK BYRNE: My name is Erik. I live in Chicago, and I play Mustang Guitars.

PATRICK OGLE: Just look at it. These are all Mustang Guitars here.

ERIK BYRNE: Well, not all of them are.

PATRICK OGLE: Oh. Not all of them?

ERIK BYRNE: No.

PATRICK OGLE: How many of them? I can’t see.

ERIK BYRNE: Um, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven -- eight of them are.

PATRICK OGLE: Eight of them are Mustangs?

ERIK BYRNE: Yeah. This one’s kind of just pieced together out of parts to make a Fender Bronco. I don’t have a true Bronco neck for it, so I’m just kind of holding off on finishing this thing ‘til I find a Bronco neck. This one is a Music Master. It originally had a pickup up here. I had a new pickguard made and put the pickup down here. I prefer pickups on the bridge as opposed to by the neck. The neck has been stripped down. That needs to be refinished, so these are kind of my projects over here.

PATRICK OGLE: Those are the things that you’re working on.

ERIK BYRNE: Yeah. This is a ’65 Mustang, 1965. Somebody had added a P90 at some point to it so the body is all routed out underneath. There’s a switch here to turn the P90 on and off, and then the switch is here where just like a regular Mustang would. Pickup off, on, both together, and then out of phase with each other. So, it’s pretty standard but this one has a size A neck which means it’s narrower than most Mustangs.

PATRICK OGLE: Right about how much?

ERIK BYRNE: That I couldn’t tell you to be honest. I never played this thing. It honestly just sits here; just kind of a deal I got on it. I paid like 300 bucks for it so just picked it up and threw it on the rack.

This one is a 1969 Fender Mustang, and this is done in Lake Placid Blue with the Competition Racing Stripe on it. This one right here is my particular favorite. This is -- I’ve had this for the longest. This one gets the most use obviously. I don't know. This is just a really great guitar.

PATRICK OGLE: What is it specifically you like about the Mustang?

ERIK BYRNE: I like the body. It’s nice and light, contoured. The ‘69s are contoured. It’s a short scale neck, so as opposed like a Stratocaster or Telecaster, it’s not as long, so it’s just easier to play the neck in my opinion. I mean it’s just a really nice guitar to play.

PATRICK OGLE: So I mean, what do you -- How would you compare? Aside from the shorter neck, what are the other differences between the Strats and the Telecasters with this.

ERIK BYRNE: I mean it’s a two-pickup design, a different sound than the Stratocaster or a Telecaster way different from a Tele, a little closer with the Stratocaster but being able to put the pickups out of phase with these gives it a really unique sound that those guitars just don’t have, not that I ever put them out of phase but...

PATRICK OGLE: You could.

ERIK BYRNE: ...you could if you wanted to.

This one is a custom-built guitar, finished in gold top gold, competition stripes, matching headstock. I had this one made with no switch on it, single pickup on the bridge which just so happens to be a Hot Rail, which is my favorite pickup to use. Any of my guitars I put Hot Rails in. I also put a 500k volume pot on it to give it more output and makes it a hotter sounding guitar. This one was made by Warmoth. I think that’s how you pronounce it, Warmoth or something, I don't know. It’s a nice guitar though.

These next three are kind of all the same guitar. I mean they’re all kind of the same guitar but this is a ’69 Fender Mustang. It was once in Competition Orange, the finish on it, but as you can see it’s been faded so much over the years that it’s kind of a yellow color now.

PATRICK OGLE: It’s almost -- It almost looks like that you can see the wood coming through too.

ERIK BYRNE: Oh yeah. It’s completely worn away. Even where the stripe once was on here, it’s completely worn off. This has Hot Rails both neck, bridge and neck. I don't know. It’s a nice playing guitar.

PATRICK OGLE: That was the one that came from somewhere -- some prison in Florida as yet to be determined.

ERIK BYRNE: That’s what the seller told me, how much of it -- How much of that I don't know. It does have some engraving on neck plate here that says “Property of U.S. Government” and some kind of serial number. What these numbers mean, I have no idea.

PATRICK OGLE: Well, if there’s anybody who has ever been in the prison system before...

ERIK BYRNE: [LAUGHING] That’s right.

PATRICK OGLE: ...I don't know but I think they can tell us about it.

ERIK BYRNE: That’s right

PATRICK OGLE: “I’ve played that guitar when I was doing 20 at [INDISCERNIBLE]”

ERIK BYRNE: [LAUGHING]