As another bumper year of killer riffs, face-melting guitar solos, and eye-catching gear releases comes to a close, Guitar World has been asking big-name players for their personal highlights.
Joe Bonamassa, one of the biggest gear-obsessives in the world, has already named a nautical-themed reverb pedal as his favorite stompbox of 2024 – but for Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, 2024 was the year he fell in love with a brand-new amp brand.
“They’re great amps to use with pedals, meaning you can get them relatively clean to get the most out of your pedals,” he says of boutique firm Silktone Amps.
Silktone handcrafts its collection of amp heads and combos from its Northern California HQ, alongside a small stable of fuzz and overdrive pedals.
The firm started by manufacturing guitar cables, but in recent years it has branched out into creating the gear its cables can be plugged into – and Perry may just be its biggest new fan.
“You can get it to crunch just by putting it to 10,” he continues of his own Silktone. “I run mine at 2 o’clock. I also have a compressor pedal and a boost from Fulltone that I use with it.
“If you can get your hands on a Silktone, it’s a great piece for your arsenal. I did some recording with mine, and for what I was going for, it worked great.”
Though he has clearly shaken up his amp collection, Perry’s guitar arsenal has remained largely unchanged over the years. Having said that, he surprised the guitar world last year when he admitted to using Strats for much of Aerosmith’s ’70s material, despite most people thinking of him as a Les Paul loyalist.
“I always felt like we should sound like one of us was playing a Fender Stratocaster and the other was playing a Gibson Les Paul,” he told Total Gutiar earlier this year. Perry, then, was firmly in the Fender camp.
But when the guitarist left the band in 1979 he also cut ties with much of his collection, which meant parting with one Strat that he still longs to be reunited with after all these years. He also recently opened up on why selling an unassuming red Hofner Stratocaster clone that was purchased on the road is one of his biggest gear regrets.
Aerosmith retired from touring in 2024 amidst Steven Tyler’s health issues, but Perry says the guitar scene’s future is bright, even if the age of the guitar hero is over.
Head to Magazines Direct to pick up a copy of the new Guitar World, which includes chats with Grace Bowers and Matteo Mancuso, as some of the world’s biggest players choose their favorite guitar highlights of 2024.
