They were unveiled at NAMM 2025 and now they have been officially launched. By popular demand, Jackson’s Surfcaster is back – and the cult-classic offset guitar has been tooled up for today’s high-gain fiends.
The Surfcaster has always been an oddball in the Charvel/Jackson lineage. This is a Jackson with a headstock that eschews pointy edges, more Rickenbacker than Reign In Blood.
It is for players looking for a metal guitar without the metal guitar aesthetics – players such as Bring Me The Horizon’s Lee Malia, whose LM-87 signature guitar appropriates the Surfcaster shape and presents us with one of the coolest new electric guitars of 2025 so far.
Jackson is offering the Surfcaster at two price points. The JS Series model is eminently affordable, retailing at just £279/$299, and offered in Snow White and Gloss Black. The X Series will set you back £699/$579 for the Satin Black six-string model, £779/$629 to extend your low-end impact with the Metallic Black seven-string guitar.
We forecast that all four will sell like hot cakes. There are some design commonalities. All of these Surfcasters feature a solid popular body, a bolt-on maple neck, a 12” to 16” compound radius fingerboard, and Jackson isn’t messing around with a Floyd Rose vibrato here. No. Hard-tail bridges come as standard. But there are some key differences.
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The JS model is a little more expensive than something such as the Squier Affinity Stratocaster but is still priced within the beginner electric guitar bracket. As such, it has an amaranth fingerboard. There’s less contouring around the neck heel (note: the body is just as generously contoured as the X Series model, and Malia’s LM-87, and that makes for a comfortable guitar).
It is equipped with a pair of Jackson-designed high-output humbuckers. The X Series, models, meanwhile, have laurel fingerboards, and have Jackson’s own humbuckers. How these compare should be an interesting experiment.
There is enough here to suggest, however, that the JS model – and the X Series, too – would make good candidates for modding. Over time you could swap out those electric guitar pickups for something a little more premium.
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The control setup is similar, too. There’s a three-way blade-style pickup selector switch, dials for volume and tone.
These guitars probably have more in common than they do points of difference but where the JS models have dot inlays, the X Series has the pearloid Sharkfin inlays you will find on its most-famous models, e.g. the Rhoads, Soloist, Kelly et al.
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The JS models have 22 jumbo frets, the X Series 24. Where the JS22’s neck and headstock has been left unbound, we have single-ply binding on the X Series’ neck and headstock [see above].
For more details and pics, head over to Jackson. You can hear ‘em in action at the top of the page.
