Mike Rutherford - Instruments

Instruments

Rutherford played mainly Rickenbacker and Shergold basses. He said (in 1979) of the early Rickenbackers he played that 'they were all borrowed from a friend. We'd borrow one, break it, then borrow another. Up until a couple of years ago, I didn't own one myself'. He also developed the idea behind the M-Series Steinberger guitar with the help of English luthier Roger Giffin and he used this extensively in the '80s and during The Invisible Touch Tour with Genesis. He also had a double-neck Status built for the Mama tour which featured a six string guitar and four string bass placed in a custom body. In the earlier years of Genesis he used to play Moog Taurus bass pedal synthesiser. Rutherford has also been onstage with various Washburn Idol models. Through the late '70s live tours, Rutherford often used a custom built Rickenbacker double-neck that combined a 12-string hollow-body guitar with a 4-string bass (now on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum). For the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and Trick of the Tail tours, he incorporated a Rickenbacker 12-string hollow-body guitar and a 6-string bass, custom-built by Microfrets, in two different double-necks. A custom Shergold double-neck was made that had modules for 4, 6 and 12 strings guitars. The re-tunings required for early Genesis songs led to the development of Peter Gabriel's stories and introductions. Today with Genesis Rutherford continues to use double-neck instruments, when the arrangements demand quick switches between bass and 12-string instruments. His current double-neck model is a Gibson 12-string guitar with a Yamaha TRB-4P bass while he prefers Eric Clapton signature model Fender Stratocasters when playing guitar on later pieces.