Marcus King Seeks to ‘Preserve the Legacy of My Grandfather’ with New Signature Gibson Guitar (Exclusive)

To Marcus King, his guitar is more than just an instrument; it’s a totem of his past.

That’s why when the iconic southern rocker, 29, teamed up with Gibson for his second signature model with the brand, a faithful reproduction of his grandfather’s 1962 cherry red ES-345, he knew that he needed to deliver something special that pays homage to the man who helped raise him.

“Whatever I can do to preserve the legacy of my grandfather, that’s something I’m going to do,” he tells PEOPLE at the Gibson Garage in Nashville. For King, that mentality extends “all the way from bringing my grandfather’s guitar with me to the Grand Ole Opry in 2019 when I made my debut there … ’til now and showcasing a USA model Gibson ES-345 that’s completely modeled after his 1962.”

The power of “being able to pass that along” to his fans is not lost on King, who’s leading a class of soulful guitarists keeping the spirit of technical proficiency informed by true-grit lifestyles alive in the country (and adjacent) picking spaces. He says the process of creating his signature model with Gibson was simple, with only a few changes made on the production run that differ from his original instrument.

“The only modifications we did for this model that are different from the original ’62 is that we have a mono input as opposed to a stereo input, which is just going to be a little bit easier. It’s a functionality that I don’t even use on the original,” King shares. “We also have the stop tailpiece … it still has the plate … we just shut down that functionality because this Maestro sometimes can affect the tuning, but this is never going to have that problem, essentially just a stop tailpiece right here.”

With those slight technical modifications aside, King explains his artist signature model is “dead-on original” with “very, very light aging on the binding,” an aesthetic detail he chose as his “grandfather would’ve never wanted any kind of aging… he liked everything to be tip-top,” he notes. “He was a career Air Force serviceman, so he wanted everything spick and span.”

Otherwise, King’s new instrument consists of a three-ply maple/poplar/maple body joined with a rounded profile mahogany neck covered with an Indian rosewood fretboard cut to 22 medium jumbo frets. The frets are adorned with acrylic parallelogram inlays, while bits throughout the rest of the instrument include gold hardware, Custombucker pickups, a fixed Vibrola tailpiece and a hardshell case.

Creating an instrument as a testament to his career accomplishments and an homage to his grandfather is a full-circle moment for King, who shares, “My grandfather was kind of the glue that kept the family together, and he got ill when I was still really young … when I was seven or eight, maybe nine years old, and ended up passing away when I was 14.”

“So from the time I was 14 until very recently, the family just, everybody went off and it wasn’t very together the way that my grandfather maintained it to be,” King further reveals, noting he spent his life pining for “a big family.”

He adds, “When I’d watch movies like Cheaper by the Dozen, I wanted to have 10 brothers and sisters running around because I felt very alone most of the time. It was just me and my guitar because me and my sister were more or less, like — I call ’em latchkey kids. We’d kind of watch ourselves or be at our grandparents’ house and spend a lot of time alone.”

“So, the idea of family is something that I’ve always really wanted. I’ve always wanted a big family and I have that again, and I’ve brought the family back together in a lot of ways, and there was no malicious energy about that. People just, life gets in the way and then that community gets smaller and smaller and I’m trying to remedy that,” he adds.

By creating his signature ES-345, King has ensured another avenue of legacy retention, while simultaneously crafting a tactile homage to his grandfather that artfully hints at his family’s story through each electrified strum.

Check out the artist’s new guitar here. His new singles, “Carolina Honey” and “Honky Tonk Hell,” are available on all major streaming platforms now.