ESP M1 Banana
Serial No.:
None – Custom made replica
Bridge:
Floyd Rose Tremelo
Bridge pickup:
Seymour Duncan TB-4 JB Trembucker
Tuners:
Grover
Construction:
Bolt On
Material specs:
- Poplar body
- Rock Maple neck
- Indian Rosewoody fretboard
- C-shapeNeck
In May 2026 I went to Malta. I wanted to get away for a week to somewhere with good weather. While I was there I paid a visit to Gianni Zammit, a collector of KISS guitars who also appears on YouTube.
He had an ESP Banana guitar there in almost exactly the same spec as Bruce Kulick’s. Bruce sells replicas himself, but with a different headstock from his own original, because Gibson now holds the patent on that headstock shape. That made them uninteresting to me as a purchase. The one Gianni had, on the other hand, was impressive. The headstock was almost the right shape – just slightly larger.
He told me it had been built by a certain Johnny Hawke in Canada. That same evening I got in touch with Johnny, and he was willing to make one for me too. I asked whether he’d make the headstock identical to Bruce’s original; he was a little hesitant about that. But when the guitar arrived, it turned out he had met my request after all.
The guitar is a 1:1 copy of Bruce Kulick’s original. Johnny is by no means a bodger — the guitar sounds fantastic and plays brilliantly. Definitely one of my favourites.