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Peavey Destiny Custom USA

Finally after 20+ years, I’ve got a Peavey Destiny again…

I’ve reached a big milestone lately… I’ve pretty much scored the last Maton of my wish list. After 10 years of blood, sweat and deals I’ve ticked all the boxes that I had in my head (apart from two ultra rare guitars that I will keep secret). I’m done.

While that is a huge relief, what that usually means is that my attention moves onto my next obsession… which is Super Strats. In the last few years I’ve been reliving my youth and listening to a lot of 80’s / 90’s thrash metal lately and Maton’s aren’t built for that. But as luck would have it, a guitar that I have searching for popped up at just the right time. The mighty Peavey Destiny.

I wrote about my red Peavey Destiny in a previous guitarnerd post (read it here) and for the last 20+ years have been looking for one. They’re very rare in Australia… my friend Anthony who ran the local guitar store said the Aussie importer didn’t bring in many. But on a Buy/Sell Facebook group a Peavey Destiny Custom popped up for a ridiculous price, so I snapped it up. And just in time for my 40th birthday!

These guitars were Peavey’s answer to the Jackson Soloist and they went all out with them. The body is mahogany with a beautiful arched quilted maple top. The knobs and switch also have recesses which is a nice PRS type touch and the tremolo is a gold Kahler Spyder which works beautifully. The bridge pickup on mine has been swapped with a Dimazrio X2N humbucker which absolutely screams.

The headstock is the carved hockey stick design as per the Vandenburg models. It adds a bit of class I think… I love the 3D look to it.

The fretboard is ebony, but is very figured with streaks of brown… it looks like rosewood but with the glass-like finish of ebony. The inlays are abalone and frets are jumbo (of course!).

The main feature of this guitar is that… like the Jackson Soloist… it’s neck-thru. Upper fret access is crazy good and the neck has a beautiful flame figuring throughout.

So how does it play? Honestly, it plays itself. The action is beautifully low and the neck profile is a little different to Jackson’s… the neck edges have a slight shoulder and it’s really comfortable to play. I’ve been playing a lot of thrash metal on it and it’s a perfect guitar for that.

So while I still regret selling my red Destiny back in 1993… this has eased that 23 year regret a lot. I play this guitar everyday and am loving every minute.

•••update

While researching this article I found some photos online of someone who’d stripped their Destiny Custom (eek!). It shows you whats under that colour. While it actually does look kick ass, I don’t think I’ll be doing it to mine.