Cheap and nasty: five artists who got famous using inexpensive gear
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13.01.2025

Cheap and nasty: five artists who got famous using inexpensive gear

Laura Lee Gear
Words by Will Brewster

Before you break open the piggy bank, read about some of your heroes who did it all on cheap gear!

Every musician has their holy grail piece of gear. Whether it’s a 1962 Fender Stratocaster, a pristine Yamaha CS-80 or a Neumann U-87 plucked from the locker at Abbey Road, we’ve all got our eyes on some kind of prize, stashing away our pennies and crossing our fingers for the day we finally get to make our dreams a reality.

But as we all know, the cost of living is cutting deep for many at the moment, and for the average muso, that means making do with whatever we can afford. But that’s no reason to throw it all away! Be it a second-hand Squier or a crusty old Casio, these cheap tools can still be used to make a mammoth sound in the hands of the right player – it might just take a bit of an attitude adjustment and a slice of humble pie to get things started.

Today, we’ve compiled a list of five significant artists who made a name for themselves with budget gear to help inspire you to keep toiling away at your craft.

Read up on all the latest features and columns here.

Robert Smith

The Cure’s enigmatic frontman isn’t one to stick to the straight and narrow when it comes to gear selection. He’s been known to sling a smattering of kooky Schecter custom builds, and is a known fan of quirky builds like the Ovation Breadwinnner, Coral Sitar and Fender Bass VI to add shimmering textures to the group’s expansive stylings.

As such, it should come as no surprise that Smith’s first fretted love was quite the piece of junk. The Japanese-made Teisco Top 20 – rebadged as the Woolworth Top 20 and sold at the department store of the same name in the UK – is a plywood creation that featured two janky single-coil pickups and a primitive tremolo arm. By all accounts, it’s not a great guitar, but it was cheap, and allowed fledgling artists like Smith to hone their craft and eventually move on to better and better things and gear!

Functioning as Smith’s primary axe in The Cure’s early years, it’s believed that he used the Top 20 to write and possibly record some of the group’s debut album Two Imaginary Boys. He even hoiked out one of the guitar’s pickups to add into the middle position of his Fender Jazzmaster when it came time to move on to something a little more professional – apparently leaving his producer Chris Parry absolutely aghast.

Laura Lee Ochoa

Laura Lee Ochoa of Khruangbin has taken the world by storm with funky grooves, new world influence and a fresh take on various scales and melodic ideas from across the world and history. Laura has done this on a relatively inexpensive SX bass, modelled after a famed design that’s ideal for jazz.

The pickups and electronic have been upgraded, though the bass can often be seen with the addition of the ashtray bridge cover. As of the interview linked above, she had used the same flatwound strings for about eight years for the ultimate round, fat and warm tone. Eagled-eyed readers will also notice the clip-on tuner on her and guitarist Mark Speer’s headstocks!

Mac DeMarco

He might be better known for his goofball antics and serendipitous, strum-heavy songwriting, but Mac DeMarco is a seriously mighty guitar player. Dig deeper into his back catalogue, and you’ll hear more than a few lead licks that recall the playing of The Grateful Dead maestro Jerry Garcia, while his janglier tracks manage to invoke some serious Johnny Marr vibes.

A massive part of Mac’s early sound came from the junky gear he gravitated towards – more so of out of sheer financial necessity, rather than any particular sonic direction. He’s been seen with old vintage Kay acoustics, is a noted fan of the Silvertone 1448, and has even headlined major music festivals brandishing a 1992 Squier Stratocaster.

It’s fair to say that Mac’s main squeeze during his early career trajectory was a banged-up ‘60s Teisco, which can be prominently heard across early records like II and Salad Days, with the jangly single-coil pickup and loose intonation of the guitar forming a core part of his early sound – think “Ode To Viceroy”, “Salad Days” and “My Kind of Woman”.  A similarly crappy Stagg bass was also his primary weapon of choice for most of the bass parts on these records, and he’s also been known to keep a Teisco EB-2 bass in his studio instrument rack.

Tom Morello

A political firebrand with some of the hottest hands in alternative rock, Tom Morello’s wildly inventive playing with the likes of Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave and even the E Street Band has cemented his status as one of the modern greats. What’s more remarkable, however, is that many of the guitarist’s greatest feats were achieved with bargain basement instruments.

One such example is Morello’s first ever guitar, an unsightly Kay ST-120 that’s vaguely reminiscent of a Gibson SG, which was purchased alongside a combo amp for no less than $50 and continues to be used by Morello across projects like the Atlas Underground. Another prime example can be found in this unnamed – but very ‘60s Japanese looking – hunk of junk, which Morello snagged for $40 in a Toronto pawn shop. It might not be pretty, but it’s this guitar that Morello used on Rage Against The Machine’s 1996 bruiser “Tire Me”, which netted the band their first Grammy Award. Just remember for that next time you’re ogling some expensive custom shop instrument …

Jack White

You could probably stake a case for Jack White being the sole reason why guitar brands like Harmony, Kay and Silvertone now fetch thousands on the used market. Detroit’s own crown prince of punk blues is well-known for his penchant for quirky stringed curios from yesteryear, with his red 1960s Airline JB Hutto Res-O-Glass being synonymous with the candy-striped aesthetics of The White Stripes during their hey-day.

Initially purchased for $200, the JB Hutto Res-O-Glass features a half-plastic construction, dual single-coils that are made to look like humbuckers, and boasts a bizarre shape that’s more akin to an alien spaceship than it is an instrument

While this offset oddity is seldom seen in White’s hands nowadays thanks to a nice merchandising deal with Fender, he still opts for a beaten-up 1950s Kay Archtop for slide-heavy tunes like “Death Letter” and “Seven Nation Army’” Patched together with cardboard to prevent excessive feedback, it’s fair to say this guitar has seen some shit – but in the hands of Jack White, it absolutely rips.

Bonus! Number 6:

Peter Hook

Best known for holding down bass duties with Manchester icons Joy Division and New Order, Hooky’s playing style is a perfect example of how certain limitations with cheap gear can help inspire creative workarounds. His melodic, upper register basslines were borne out of necessity – during the early years of Joy Division, Hook could barely hear his bass parts due to the immense volume of Bernard Sumner’s guitar amp, forcing him to play hard up the neck so his parts would cut through the mix.

Upon founding Joy Division in 1976, Hook’s primary bass guitar was a cheap Gibson EB-0 knock-off, which he’d soon replace with an arguably crappier alternative: a Hondo copy of the esteemed Rickenbacker 4001. It was this monstrosity that Hooky played across Joy Division’s twin post-punk masterpieces, Unknown Pleasures and Closer, with the instrument’s aggressive midrange and gritty pickups lending itself to Hooky’s unconventional playing style.

Although he’s since embraced various custom-builds for different gigs, Hooky can still be routinely seen on stage rocking a relatively affordable Yamaha BB-734 bass, well and truly proving the old idiom that a good craftsman never blames his tools.

Keep reading about more gear like the 700 series of bass guitars from Yamaha here.