Joe Perry, like fellow guitarists Keith Richards, Mick Mars and Steve Morse, has arthritis in his hands, but he’s trying to come up with solutions in his guitar setup to continue to play.
He tells Guitar World, “On the EP [Steven Tyler and I] did with Yungblud, One More Time, everything you hear I did with [my Fender Strat, aka ‘The Rat Strat’] and just a few foot pedals. I think that shows the variety of tones you can get out of it.
“It’s got fat frets, and I use a hybrid set of strings with it because it has that vibrato… That way, I can bend notes the way I want, and it also saves my hands because the arthritis is starting to kick in, but it’s nothing I can’t play through. At this point, it is and will continue to be my ‘desert island guitar,’ but you never know.”
