Frank Iero

What’s better than hearing an awesome guitarist belt out some rockin’ guitar riffs? Hearing them from one that gives back to his community!

Recently Frank Iero of My Chemical Romance, was asked to design a guitar for Epiphone, which he gladly took as an opportunity to give back to the charity of his choice.

Talking about the guitar, which he named the Phant-o-matic, Iero told Rolling Stone, “I took the body from the Wilshire, I took the Anico Humbuckers out of the Les Paul, I put the Les Paul neck on it and headstock, changed the tuners around, and f***ed a little bit with the electronics – and we made the Phant-o-matic”. It’s as simple as that! Ha!

Iero says that when Epiphone initially approached him about creating his very own guitar model, he thought first about his family.

“Basically when given this opportunity the first thing that came to mind was my dad buying me my first guitar, and the reason I got into music was my grandfather and dads played drums and were in bands forever,” Iero says. The MCR guitarist says as a youngin, he owned the Jag-Stang, which Kurt Cobain had created for Fender back in ’94.

When asked what Papa Iero thought about his son designing his own freakin’ guitar, Frank says, “They were like, ‘Are you serious? That’s crazy’”, adding, “My dad was super psyched.”

To show his family some love Iero decided to make the guitar-designing experience a charitable one. He explains, “About six years ago my family was affected by multiple sclerosis and that was the first thing that came to mind. The only reason I would be doing this is because of my family, so why not give back?” Iero says that Epiphone pledged to match every dollar he gives to MS. Good man!