Rhythm guitar maestro Cory Wong may have been a self-professed “Strat guy through and through”, but the need for more versatility in the form of a humbucker-equipped guitar – coupled with an off-kilter idea inspired by an iconic bass design – led him to knock on Ernie Ball’s door. The rest, as they say, is history – or in this case, the StingRay II, which was officially unveiled this past NAMM.
“I just needed a guitar with humbuckers. If I go out on tour, I just want two guitars: I want a guitar that can do everything that the Strat doesn’t do,” Wong says of the collaboration in the newest issue of Guitarist.
As Wong puts it, he was in the market for a guitar that can deliver a range of sounds: something that delivers the “George Benson, Larry Carlton thing”, “screaming lead and driving punk thing in a bridge pickup”, and “something that’s just got the Earth, Wind & Fire, Prince, funky thing that’s different from the Strat”.
After realizing that it’s near-impossible to get all of those tones out of one guitar, he embarked on his quest for a companion to his Strat. However, despite testing different pickups and guitars, none of them stuck.
“Then one day, I was just scrolling the internet and I saw (Vulfpeck/Fearless Flyers bassist) Joe Dart texting me, he’s like, ‘Yo, so the Joe Dart Jr bass is coming out, check it out!’ And he sent me a picture,” he recalls. “This thing looks amazing. It’s basically just like a miniature StingRay, and it had one pickup and whatever.”
What followed was a real-life lightbulb moment. “I emailed Brian Ball (CEO of Ernie Ball Inc). I was like, ‘Hey, can you just slap six strings on there and a humbucker and send me one?’ He’s like, ‘No, I can’t. That’s not how it works…’
“So it’s like, ‘Okay, well, have you guys ever made a StingRay guitar? Because that shape is really cool. You guys should make one. You should do it. It’d be so awesome.’”
A render and a couple of exchanges later, Wong was officially hooked. “I’m like, ‘It’s awesome!’ They’re like, ‘Okay, hold on. I feel like we’re kind of collaborating on this. How involved do you want to be in this?’ I said, ‘However involved you want me to be. Because what you’re doing right now is making the guitar that I want to be a companion to my Strat.’ So they said, ‘All right, let’s do this as a collaborative guitar.’”
As for whether Wong managed to achieve the tone (or should should that be tones?) of his dreams, the answer is a resounding yes.
“I’m so stoked about this guitar. What it’s done is it’s really made it so that when I go on tour, I can bring my Strat and I can bring (the Music Man) for everything else, you know?” he gushes.
“It’s kind of interesting; everybody knows me as a Strat player, like that is my voice. But any professional guitar player who says, ‘Oh yeah, I just play one guitar,’ they’re lying. We all know that. (This guitar is) the perfect companion to the Strat, in every way.”
And, in other news, in his inaugural Guitar World column, Wong lays out the principles – and the mentality – of good rhythm playing, and how you can make it fun.
For more from Cory Wong, plus new interviews with Mike Campbell and Lita Ford, pick up issue 524 of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.
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