Bruce Kulick is launching a custom ’80s-style guitar line that pays homage to his KISS days.

With the help of AXN and local artisans, the former KISS and Grand Funk Railroad guitarist is developing a range of instruments that hark back to his Superstrat adventures.

Kulick found help from Johnny DiFatta, a California-based guitar maker whose AXN Guitars is based on small-batch quality. “I manufacture a few guitars a year,” DiFatta says. “AXN will continue to be concerned more about uniqueness and individuality instead of quantity and high production.”

To date, he’s helped craft reproductions of Kulick’s well-loved banana ESP M-1, and an M-1–style guitar featuring the player’s likeness from the cover of 1985 Kiss album Asylum. The instruments feature Kulick’s name on the headstock.

“My guitars are an evolution,” DiFatta asserts. “AXN is the culmination of all the best things that have come from the history of handmade guitars. That’s why I call my them ‘luthier-grade’ guitars.”

Kulick hopes to develop a line of boutique instruments. “These guitars should be played, not just hung on a wall,” he says. “I’d like to offer some of the paint designs I created during my Kiss years. It will be an evolving endeavor that I’m compelled to explore.”

Read the full article at Guitar World.