A guitar from one of Guns N’ Roses’ most famous gigs has a new owner.
The white Gibson ES-175D guitar Izzy Stradlin played during GN’R’s 1988 “Live at The Ritz” MTV broadcast has sold for $79,860, Backstage Auctions co-owner Kelli van Gool tells AL.com. The online auction for Stradlin’s former guitar closed March 29.
The starting bid for the guitar was $50,000. The $79,860 sales figure represents the so-called “hammer price,” which includes the sold price plus a “buyer’s premium.” van Gool did not disclose the buyer’s name or location. Stradlin’s ES-175D was a 1987 model. A 1987 ES-175D without fame-appeal can be had for around $3,000 or $4,000.
MTV’s ’88 Ritz broadcast was the first time many fans outside the band’s Los Angeles area saw a raw live performance from Guns N’ Roses. During the set, GN’R blazed through now-classic hard-rock songs like “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Paradise City” and “Welcome to the Jungle.” A blistering cover of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” was soon excerpted and put into high rotation on MTV. Back then MTV was the most important way for artists to reach new and bigger audiences.
Howie Hubberman financed Guns N’ Roses and managed ’80s glam-metal group Poison early on in their respective careers. He confirmed the ES-175D was indeed Stradlin’s and appraised it for auction.
The band 'Guns N' Roses', (L-R) Slash, Duff McKagan, Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin, at a press conference announcing the finalists for the MTV Video Music Awards, Los Angeles, July 12th 1988. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Hubberman was the guest on host Brandon “Brando” Weissler’s latest “Appetite for Distortion” podcast episode, which I cohosted. “As soon as I looked at it, there were a couple of key marks on that guitar,” Hubberman said, “and I won’t even say what they are, but I knew that was the guitar and it came out of my store.”
I asked Hubberman if he had any information as to whether Stradlin played the ES-175D on GNR’s gargantuan 1987 debut album “Appetite for Destruction,” as the auction listing had inferred. (Timeline wise, it’s possible it could’ve been for overdubs, although “AFD” basic tracking took place before the guitar was made.)
“I’d be lying to you if I told you I had any knowledge of that at all,” Hubbeman said. “I don’t. I just know that’s the guitar he used on a lot of the live shows, including The Ritz out of New York. I would never put my name on something unless I knew for fact that it did go down.”
Stradlin originally obtained the white ES-175D, as well as the black Gibson guitar he played in the “Welcome to the Jungle” music-video, through Hubberman’s now defunct store Guitars R Us in Hollywood.
Hubberman says Stradlin brought the guitar back into the store (“I think he owned me some money on some other stuff”) after a run of ’88 shows including The Ritz. In exchange, Hubberman says he gave Stradlin a credit of around $700, the guitar’s market price back then. “He never had a really big bill with me and Izzy always took care of it pretty promptly,” Hubberman says.
During this era, mononymous GN’R lead guitarist Slash acquired a couple of Les Paul replicas, built by luthier Peter Max Baranet, from Hubberman. “Slash wound up taking care of those a year, two years later, but he did square up with me.”
The Backstage Auctions listing stated, after Stradlin sold to Hubberman, “Izzy’s girlfriend at the time - Stacy King - alerted two of her friends who played in a local Sunset Strip rock band. They bought this guitar, as well as a 1987 black Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion, from Howie’s store and for the past 32 years, the guitars have been in their possession. They sold the guitars in 2020 to a veteran music industry executive.” The music exec was the consignor for the recent auction of Stradlin’s former Gibson ES-175D. (More info on the guitar’s history and the auction here.)
A 1987 Gibson ES-175D said to have been owned by classic-era Guns N’ Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin is headed to auction via backstageauctions.com. (Backstage Auctions)
In addition to his songwriting, Stradlin is known for his cool look and vibe. During the podcast interview, Hubberman, who aside from his guitar focus dabbles in rock memorabilia, said he’d purchased about 30 pieces of Stradlin’s old clothes, including vests and Prada shirts.
Guitars R Us was located on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, very near Guns N’ Roses’ early rehearsal space. So Hubberman - who also promoted L.A. area concerts including GN’R shows at the Roxy and Whisky a Go Go - watched the band’s evolution from street-band to superstars.
“They were one of the first real rock & roll bands to come out of the glam scene and reinvent themselves in Los Angeles,” Hubberman said. “When I saw that happen and what they were building as a following … And there was not a lot of money into Guns N’ Roses at first. We put a little bit into ads and things like that. We got them decent equipment.”
When I asked what made Stradlin special as a guitarist and essential to GN’R’s sound, Hubberman said, “I think Izzy and Slash were the ying to the yang of what they created, rock & roll. Without Izzy and Izzy’s parts, Slash would not have been as strong a guitar player. Izzy allowed, with his playing and writing, Slash to step right in and make it better, bigger, more powerful than it came in.”
During the podcast interview, Hubberman also discussed: his belief Stradlin, who’s not been part of the ongoing GN’R semi-reunion, will eventually rejoin the group; why he saw potential in Guns N’ Roses and Poison early-on; selling guitars to rock legends like Bruce Springsteen and George Harrison; the status of a GN’R biopic once in development with actor James Franco.
“The presentation of that movie was going to be Guns N’ Roses in the absolute best of light,” Hubberman said. “Because I’ve never seen Guns N’ Roses in anything less than the best of light. There was never a downside. The money from me was paid back in full. The appreciativeness from them, not only platinum and gold records given to me, but also to Guitars R Us.”
Post GN’R, and a brief tour with his first solo band Juju Hounds, Stradlin has mostly receded from public life. Hubberman said he ran into Izzy at another Los Angeles guitar store, Sam Ash, a while back. “As he’s walking in the door, I’m walking out the door,” Hubberman says. “He recognizes me and gives me a big hug.”
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