ESP Guitars has officially added Joe Duplantier to its artist lineup, with director of artist relations, Tony Rauser, offering us a closer look at the custom chrome offset electric guitar that the Gojira frontman used to blow all our minds at the Paris Olympics.
Duplantier had been with Charvel for a number of years, collaborating on a San Dimas Style 2 signature guitar that was one of our favourite electric guitars in recent years.
But after appearing with a mystery ESP electric guitar in the opening ceremony of the Olympic games it was inevitable that Duplantier had switched to the Japanese brand – and what a way to announce it, to a worldwide audience of more than one billion people.
Taking to Instagram once the news was official, Rauser wrote of his pride at adding Duplantier to an artist roster that includes the likes of Gary Holt, Max Cavalera, Nergal, Bill Kelliher, James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett.
“I’m extremely proud to officially welcome Joe Duplantier of Gojira to the ESP family,” wrote Rauser. “The epic debut of Joe’s custom chrome ESP happened at the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony. It was a historic moment for Gojira and for Metal! Plus ESP in Olympics? Truly wild.”
He is not wrong there. For some, it was Simone Biles in gymnastics. Others might argue it was Léon Marchand in the pool. But for metalheads and guitar nerds, it was the seeing Duplantier in the opening ceremony that was the defining moment of the Paris Olympics – closely followed by H.E.R. and that awesome custom Stratocaster she was playing in the closing ceremony (when can we buy that?).
Duplantier was playing a custom XJ at the Olympics. There are no details as yet what his signature model might look like but we would not be surprised if it is not a similarly custom spec’d XJ. If so, we’re looking at an EverTune bridge, a single-pickup model with a single volume control.
You can bet good money that the electric guitar pickup in question is one of Duplantier’s signature DiMarzio Fortitude humbuckers, which are voiced like a PAF on performance-enhancing drugs – disqualifying in the Olympics but necessary when playing the city-levelling riffs and sky-tearing pick scrapes that make Gojira one of the most exciting bands in metal.
