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Ed Sheeran Rocks Crashocaster Replica

14 Feb 15

Pop sensation Ed Sheeran has broken out a replica of Eric Clapton’s Crashocaster at a few high profile gigs of late, including the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles last Sunday. It’s an apparent homage to Eric’s influence on an 11 year-old budding musician. Last summer, Ed told Zane Lowe on MTV Soundchain that “My Dad’s record collection was pretty much the first education I had. But when I first picked up an instrument, I watched the Queen’s Jubilee in 2002 and Eric Clapton came on stage and played Layla. I was like ‘Wow. That was really cool. I wanna play that.’ And that was why I got a guitar; first song I learned. And then I got into rock bands and got into guitar players.” Eric played the Crashocaster at that event.

Eric still owns the original, which was painted for him by the American artist, John “Crash” Matos. He debuted the Crashocaster (also known as Crash 1) on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in March 2001. It was Eric’s main working guitar through the 2004 World Tour.

EC told Where’s Eric! in 2003 that he had commissioned a suite of 10 graffiti guitars painted by a variety of artists including Stash, Daze and Futura. (He graciously allowed Where’s Eric! to publish colour photographs of them in Issue 35). He added another Stratocaster by Crash and a graffiti Telecaster to the collection in 2005.

Watch Eric Clapton’s 2002 performance at Buckingham Palace that inspired Ed Sheeran to learn guitar:

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