Hey hey hey, welcome back to the sixth installment of Famous Guitars! I’m hopefully still your host Cassie. It’s been a while since my last article, but in my defense, our media lab department has been pretty doggone busy. Fear not though, because I have no plans of bringing my column to a stop. I’m pretty fond of putting out content that I’m interested in for other people to read, y’know?
Today I’ve got a pretty exciting article for ya, and I’m proud to admit that I actually own one of these guitars! So how about we skip to the good part and I introduce our victim of the day, shall we? So without further ado, please welcome Dave “The Snake” Sabo and his signature Kramer Baretta!
Who is Snake Sabo?
Dave “Snake” Sabo is the lead guitar player for late 80’s hard rock band Skid Row. He’s been playing with them ever since forming the band with bassist Rachel Bolan-who IS a guy by the way- and has no intention of leaving the band as far as I know. Unlike former lead vocalist Sebastian Bach. Snake Sabo’s also known for his absolutely fabulous hair back in the day. (Okay maybe not, but to me he is.) And his equally as metal signature Kramer.
The Kramer Baretta
So way back in the early 80’s, Snake Sabo acquired his first Kramer. Actually it was a parts guitar that just so happened to be fitted with a Kramer neck. He and artist Dennis Kline talked about a design to paint on the body. “How about something with a snake coming out of a grave with my birthdate on it?” Sabo suggested. The design Kline came up with was just what Sabo wanted, and so the deed was done, and the Snake Sabo Baretta was born.
Dave Sabo would use his old parts guitar to play almost every early Skid Row show. He took that guitar everywhere with him. He was hardly ever gigging without it. So naturally when the Kramer Guitar company was relaunched, they wanted to create their own version of Snake’s iconic axe.
Construction
When Kramer relaunched the Snake Sabo Baretta, they decided to go for an alder wood body with a three-piece maple neck. The neck features a reverse headstock-just like Sabo’s old one had- 22 frets, and an Indian laurel wood fretboard. Fancy stuff eh? There’s only one pickup in the guitar, and that’s the Kramer 85-T. The T stands for tremolo if you’re wondering. The strings on a guitar with a tremolo system are slightly wider set than on a guitar without one so you need slightly wider magnets. Anyways, Snake Sabo reportedly LOVES this pickup. He’s called it “ridiculous” because it’s so gain-y. (As someone who owns one of these guitars, I can confirm. The pickups sound great.)
The tremolo system is a Floyd Rose 1000 decked out with an EVH D-Tuna. What that does is if you pull on the knob at the back of the bridge, it loosens up your low E string so that you end up in drop D tuning. They never work the way they’re supposed to, but it’s a really cool concept.
Final Thoughts
Again, I actually have one of these guitars, but I think that makes me all the more qualified to talk about it right? Anyways, This guitar’s wicked. The snake artwork by Dennis Kline is probably one of THE MOST metal paint jobs I’ve ever seen on a guitar. It sounds great, it plays great with a few minor adjustments. It’s fine straight out of the box, but my dad and I can never leave a guitar alone. And I’m picky, so it has to be just perfect, y’know?
That’s all I’ve got for this one, I hope it was as enjoyable as the other installments to this column! This was a fun guitar to learn about. I also just really like Skid Row, so maybe that was part of it. Nowhere have I claimed to be unbiased. Anyways, I have no idea what my next project’s gonna be, so I should get on that. I’ll catch ya later, until next time, Rock on!
Guitar Glossary
Pickup: The device in the guitar that picks up the sound using magnets and pushes it through the amp (don’t ask how, it’s magic.)
Tremolo: A type of bridge that allows you to temporarily loosen or tighten the strings (Be careful with the latter though, I snapped a string doing that once,)
Fret: The metal wire the string touches when pressed down
Fretboard: The part of the guitar the strings sit over
Headstock: The part at the end of the neck that has the guitar company’s logo and the tuning pegs on it
Parts Guitar: A guitar frankenstiened together with a whole bunch of different parts. Parts could come from other guitars, they could be ordered, found at music shops, there is no rules.
