I signed Vinnie to Ibanez. He lived about 20 minutes form the Ibanez facility. He sent a tape and a letter saying he wanted to come over and talk to us about a guitar. We hadn’t heard of him as he was only playing in a copy band in Delaware (where he lived- which is just below Philadelphia) and the whole Varney/Shrapnel thing hadn’t really gotten going yet. I made an appointment and Vinnie came up. He’s a pretty quiet guy, and didn’t say much. He started playing a little on the Fender Strat he brought with him, and we all just stopped. A lot of people sounded like Vinnie in the years to come, but he had really good tone and chops. He wanted us to basically make him a Strat that had humbuckings and a better tremolo. We took an existing Roadstar guitar and modified it. In those days, we didn’t have an actual custom shop at Ibanez. Mace Bailey, Leon Reddell and I used the repair department after hours to throw guitars together.
Once Vinnie’s first Shrapnel album came out, and we did ads with him, he did lots of store visits and clinics for Ibanez. We got to be friends and he would hang out at my place in Philadelphia. We negotiated with Vinnie to produce a VM model guitar. Though the guitar played well and sounded great for the type of playing that was popular at the time, it didn’t sell that well. At the time, we felt that it didn’t get noticed because it was fairly plain looking and Vinnie wasn’t touring with a band. I don’t clearly remember all the reasons, but it also started life with a non-locking tremolo and locking tuners at a time when the Floyd bridge was mandatory.
Rich Lasner