Rowan Robertson's Custom Shop Jackson Strat
I have always been a Dio fan. When I heard that he had picked up a 17 year old guitarist and was cutting a record with him, I was floored. When I first heard "Lock Up the Wolves", I was amazed that he was so young and talented. At the time I was about 13 years old, so Rowan quickly became an idol of mine. I caught the on video for "Wild One" on MTV's "Head Banger's Ball". When I saw the guitar he was playing, I wanted it almost as much as Lynch's "J. Frog" guitar. This is the actual guitar that he played in the video.
The guitar was a custom one of a kind Jackson that was made for Rowan by Grover. It has a "Limited 88" serial numbered plate. The first 500 were for the limited's and the numbers over 88500 were for endorsement and custom guitars. Aside from the killer graphic, she has EMG's (pictured in the video) and a very innovative scallop job on a highly flamed maple neck.
There is a little interesting story with this guitar. When Rowan was given the guitar by Grover, they intended for him to be endorsed by Jackson. In the video you can clearly see "Jackson" on the head stock. Now "Jackson" has been removed. I believe that there was some bad blood between the two of them over the endorsement deal. So Rowan removed the name off of the head stock. In a 1989 Guitar magazine he is pictured with the guitar without the logo on it. So this was definitely done when he owned the guitar. The magazine has Jeff Healy on the cover.
Just recently I found myself back stage with Ronnie James Dio. When I pulled the guitar out, his jaw dropped. After explaining how I got it, Dio said that he had wish Rowan would of asked him to buy it instead of going to the street to sell it. But he said that he was glad that it went to such a big fan of Rowan and himself. Since the video and song is call "Wild One", Ronnie signed it "THE WILD ONE....RONNIE JAMES DIO". What a night.
