This is the Graveyard Disciple, a collaboration between Epiphone and Zakk Wylde. And it’s, erm, a coffin.

It’s a limited edition coffin, however, comprising a mahogany body and a maple neck all decked out in funereal black. An ebony fingerboard and none-more-black hardware complete the look.

It’s loaded with EMG-HZ pickups. These are passive pickups and are probably a concession to the price bracket. It does come with a proper Floyd Rose trem though.

The Graveyard Disciple is certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Those that will be attracted by its looks may have to consider the practicalities of the instrument. The pickup toggle, for instance, is mounted on the top edge of the guitar which seems a little exposed to me. Also, while it may look the part when you’re rocking a stadium stage, you try sitting on the edge of your bed and practising scales with something like this. To help accommodate players too lazy to stand up, Epiphone have had to install a Steinberger ‘LegRest’. This is a flappy thing screwed to the bottom edge that you fold out to prop the guitar on your leg – we last saw them on those tiny-bodied, headless Steinbergers in the 80’s.

To remind you of the Zakk Wylde connection, the back of the headstock has a Zakk graphic. The graphic shows Zakk playing his usual Les Paul and what it actually serves to remind you is that you’re not playing a Les Paul

I guess it doesn’t really matter though. The sort of person that this will appeal to probably won’t be put off by these things. And, nor should they be. The world needs weird and wonderful guitars and it needs weird and wonderful guitarists. I wish all Graveyard Disciple buyers luck. Personally, I’d have one over my dead body. Ha!

More info at Epiphone.