Diamond Rowe co-founded the heavy metal band Tetrarch with high-school friend Josh Fore when they were still teenagers in Atlanta. At the time, Rowe could only imagine the type of success the band have now experienced, which includes a string of well-received albums and EPs and sharing stages with the likes of Avenged Sevenfold, Sevendust, and others.
“As a kid you’re like, ‘That would be so sick,’” Rowe tells Guitar World. “But it’s all just a dream.”
Another thing that was just a dream? Having her own signature guitar model. But like many things in Rowe’s musical life, that dream is now reality, in the form of the Jackson Pro Series Signature Diamond Rowe DR12MG EVTN6.
“I’m honored,” she says of the impressively spec’d electric. “To see it come to fruition is really, really cool. Because it’s always been a goal of mine.”
The reason why, she continues, “is that I’ve always loved guitar players that had a very big guitar presence. When you look at Slash or Dimebag or Kirk (Hammett), they were never just ‘the guitar player,’ you know what I mean? You know them by name, you go to the show to see them. I knew I wanted to be that type of player, and I knew that I wanted a signature as well.”
For Rowe, it was important that her signature model embodied her distinct personality and playing preferences.
“I think some people look at a signature model and think, ‘I’m gonna put everything I’ve ever wanted to try into this guitar,’” she says. “But for me, I looked at it more like, ‘No, I want it to be what Diamond plays.’ So anyone picking up this guitar is getting something I truly believe in.”
In this case, that means a single-cut body design (based on Jackson’s Monarkh shape) fitted with a set of active EMG 81 and 85 humbuckers, features that have long been foundational to her guitar makeup.
“I’ve been playing single cuts since I was very young,” Rowe says. “I got my first ‘pro’ guitar for Christmas when I was 13, a Gibson Les Paul Standard, and ever since I’ve been playing single cuts. So I knew my guitar had to be that shape. And pickups, a lot of people are using Fishmans and stuff like that, especially in modern metal, but I knew mine had to be the EMG 81 and 85, because that’s what I’ve been playing for so long. It’s a big part of my sound.”
That said, Rowe also experimented with a few out-of-the box ideas, among them employing a 25.5-inch scale length, unusual for a single cut (designs like the Gibson Les Paul and the Jackson Monarkh employ a shorter 24.75-inch scale).
“It’s more associated with Fender-type guitars,” Rowe acknowledges of her signature model’s scale length. “But I was talking with my tech, who’s a bit of a guitar geek, and he was just like, ‘You need to try a 25-and-a-half.’ So I asked Jackson if they would send me a prototype with that scaling, and it was awesome.
“It felt good, it sounded good. In Tetrarch we tune to drop A, which isn’t super low for modern metal, but is pretty low on a six-string guitar. To me, the longer scale just added a little bite. So we kept it.”
Rowe also ventured outside the norm on the visual side of things, working with Jackson to craft an entirely new headstock shape.
Many Jackson models, including the Monarkh, employ what she describes as the “candle flame” design. But, Rowe says, “I knew I wanted to do something different. And Jackson were really awesome about it. They said, ‘Send some options, even if it’s just a drawing on a piece of paper, and we’ll mock it up for you.’”
Which is exactly what happened.
“We took the candle-flame design and kind of scooped off the point and squared it up a little,” she continues. “It came out so cool, and it’s something that isn’t on any other Jackson. It’s new to my guitar and is only on my guitar.”
As far as materials used in the build, the Diamond Rowe signature boasts a Nyatoh body and three-piece neck, as well as a 12-inch-radius ebony fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets. That board, she notes, is free of fret markers.
“It’s a missed opportunity for me to do something diamond-related,” she acknowledges with a laugh. “But everything I tried just looked gaudy to me. So I just wiped it completely and we added Luminlay side dots, which is great for when I’m playing on a dark stage.”
There’s also an EverTune bridge (“I’ve been using those for years” she says), Jackson-branded locking-style tuners, and a three-way toggle and dual volume knobs for the EMG pickup set. And it’s all presented with a gorgeous Dark Rose finish that, Rowe says, she and Jackson worked hard to perfect.
“Most people would probably say the finish is the easiest part of making a guitar, but it was actually what took the longest for me,” she says. “Because I didn’t want to do a regular flame top or a regular quilt maple, like you see on pretty much every single-cut-style guitar. I told Jackson I wanted to try something different. So I looked around at other finishes and found one that I really liked – it’s kind of smoky and not as ‘linear’ as a flame top or quilt maple.”
From there, Rowe continues, “it was just a matter of figuring out the hue. I like guitars to have a little color, but I’m not a person who’s into, like, bright pink. I said, ‘I want to keep it dark.’ What we came up with is a really deep red, which almost looks black sometimes. I think we got it pretty cool.”
As for the name of the finish? “My middle name is Rose,” she says. “So Dark Rose was a nice nod to that.”
It all adds up to an instrument that is built, much like Rowe, for modern metal mayhem.
“I’m not playing the Eagles, so this is probably not the guitar for that,” Rowe says with a laugh. “But it’s perfect for me in my musical world. I think it would be for anyone else in that space as well.”
Another thing that’s special about the Jackson Diamond Rowe? It represents the first signature guitar model for a Black female heavy metal artist, a distinction that is not lost on her.
“I say this a lot: When I started playing guitar at 12, I didn’t have any influences like me in metal or hard rock. I looked up to (Korn’s Brian ‘Head’ Welch) and Dimebag and Dan Donegan, and I just wanted to play guitar like these guys that I loved a lot,” Rowe says. “People would say to me, ‘You’re doing something different, you look different,’ but when I was younger I didn’t want to be different. I just wanted to be like my heroes.”
Nowadays, she sees the value in standing out.
“I get messages all the time from people who are like, ‘It’s so awesome to see someone like you doing this, because I didn’t have anybody to really look up to when I was younger.’ That’s the thing that I feel most honored about.
“I never tried to be something I’m not, and I was able to accomplish all these things organically on my journey. And now, something like getting a signature guitar winds up having a bigger impact than maybe I could have even anticipated. That’s a cool thing. And it all comes from just being Diamond.”
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