What's the story behind the Les Paul Standard no longer in Ronnie's possession?

Haha oh god...
Alright.

Well, there was a young girl who was a fan of the band who after sleeping with a few times (oblivious to me, as usual) began to have "feelings" for me. I entered a relationship with another girl and she continued to carry a torch, so in her mind a way to win me over was to give me her tobacco burst Gibson Les Paul standard.

I couldn't believe it, nobody had ever given me something like that before, in a messenger conversation discussing the guitar she said "it's yours to do what you want with" so I took a screen shot and saved it.

As L.U.S.T. went into the studio to record the album that would become First Tattoo I used the Les Paul to record a lot of the rhythm guitars and some leads, it was a great sounding guitar, the girl offered to help out coming into the studio filming sessions and giving me lifts, even attempted to become best friends with the girl I was with, started dressing like her, changed her hair to be the same as hers. I was incredibly flattered, eventually we slept together again.

I made it incredibly clear that there was nothing serious going on between us and there never would be. After we had finished tracking the album, one day the girl I was with broke up with me, I had no idea why. It turns out the girl who had given me the guitar had told her I had been with another girl whilst on tour in an attempt to break us up so she could have me all to herself.

So I came clean about sleeping with the girl who had given me the guitar behind her back, apologized, we got back together, I sold the guitar & spent the money on getting the Ramones eagle tattooed the size of my back.

One afternoon we were sound checking at the Gaelic club in Sydney and I kept getting calls from an anonymous number, eventually I found out it was the girls father, she had lied to him and said I'd stolen the guitar, he said that if I didn't pay him the cost of the guitar he was going to take me to court. So I sent him the screen shot I had taken and that was the end of that.

It's not something I'd do again, and I do miss playing that guitar, but it was cursed.

-Ronnie.

Ask me anything