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Lot Essay
I first started working with Hans Zimmer in 2010 on the soundtrack for the movie Inception, and since then we've worked on a few more together. I wanted a very specific 12-string sound for Inception, and when I came across a 1960s Gibson Double Neck it became my signature sound for the film. Afterwards, I got this 1993 model and used it for all of my subsequent movie projects with Hans Zimmer. As well as its distinctive look, the guitar has a distinctive sound due to its large body mass and darker, more ‘rock’-sounding pickups, which makes for a great electric 12-string sound. Working on movies, I have to come up with a lot of different ideas, so having both 6 strings and 12 strings in my hands is almost like playing two guitars at once. It also means I can play in two different tunings without having to change guitars. When Hans Zimmer asked me to play guitar on the soundtrack to the James Bond movie No Time To Die in 2018, I used this guitar on the title song ‘No Time to Die’ with Billie Eilish, which won the award for Best Original Song at the Oscars in 2022.
JOHNNY MARR, 2026
Johnny Marr discovered the Gibson EDS-1275 doubleneck by accident while working on the score for Christopher Nolan’s Inception with Oscar-winning film composer Hans Zimmer in 2010. Interviewed by Joe Bosso for Guitar World in 2022, Marr recalled: It started with the movie Inception. It would be 3:30 in the morning, and I’d be jet-lagged and driving engineers mad while we were making a movie about people putting themselves to sleep. I realized the sound I was chasing was this distorted harmonic 12-string. And the only one that was in the building belonged to another composer. It was this funky old EDS-1275. I started using it, and I realized that it’s the best goddamn electric 12-string sound. Speaking to Guitar World’s Rod Brakes that same year, Marr explained what he particularly loved about the 12-string tone on the Gibson doubleneck: The combination of the [shallow] SG depth, that larger width, and the humbucker sound all adds up to a darker, deeper picture. It darkens that 12-string top-end chime up in a really good way. Also, you can leave the other unused half of the guitar ringing out in an open tuning, which sometimes works well at high volume.
When Zimmer asked Marr to work with him again on the soundtrack to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Marr set out to acquire his own Gibson EDS-1275 ahead of commencing work on the project and purchased this 1993 Cherry Red model from a dealer in Tokyo in 2013. Marr co-wrote the score with Zimmer as a member of the supergroup The Magnificent Six, which featured Marr, Pharrell Williams, Michael Einziger, Junkie XL, Andrew Kawczynski, and Steve Mazzaro. When the soundtrack was released alongside the film in 2014, Zimmer told the press: When we came together to form a band to create the music of this film, we did the opposite of what composers usually do – we wrote songs, and from the songs came the themes. We embraced a rock-and-roll ethos on this movie, and it paid off. Marr’s Gibson doubleneck can be heard throughout the soundtrack, including on ‘The Electro Suite’.
The doubleneck continued to play a central role on Marr’s subsequent soundtrack collaborations with Hans Zimmer, for 2015 American drama Freeheld and 2021 James Bond film No Time To Die. Speaking to Music Radar in 2022, Marr revealed: I have been using the 12-string a lot, like the electric 12-string on Inception. Most of the stuff I have been doing on the new Bond film are these really bugged-out noises that we all know about but that just cannot be done the same way on a synthesizer because it is to do with wires. It is to do with steel and wire and the microphonic nature of pickups, and spring reverbs, and that’s even before they are manipulated.
Notably, Marr used the doubleneck to record the title song ‘No Time To Die’ with Billie Eilish, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2022. Speaking to Stereogum in 2021, Marr revealed that Eilish rumours began circulating early on in the process: Straightaway I was hearing it and was like "That’s a fucking great idea man." Because I imagined what it might be like. I felt there’d be some interesting sonics in it, and it’d be modern, and it’d have a femininity to it. I’d seen a couple Billie shows, and I was really interested in Finneas' process. When I heard the song, I was like, "This is a no brainer, this is great." Because it's a Bond film, there was a lot of debate and discussion about the orchestration. Ultimately, though, for my part, I had to do very little [rather] than do too much. I did play a bit more than what ended up on the record, and it was reduce, reduce, reduce, because the power is in the composition and Billie's delivery, really. Not surprisingly, it should sound like a Billie Eilish track… The power of that song is in its subtlety… I had little to do with it besides a few guitar licks.
After acquiring this guitar in 2013, the doubleneck quickly became Marr’s go-to electric 12-string for solo recordings too, used on 2018 solo album Call The Comet and 2022’s Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. When listing the key guitars on the latter record for Music Radar, Marr confirmed: for the 12-strings I used the 1275 double-neck because it is the best electric 12-string sound.
JOHNNY MARR, 2026
Johnny Marr discovered the Gibson EDS-1275 doubleneck by accident while working on the score for Christopher Nolan’s Inception with Oscar-winning film composer Hans Zimmer in 2010. Interviewed by Joe Bosso for Guitar World in 2022, Marr recalled: It started with the movie Inception. It would be 3:30 in the morning, and I’d be jet-lagged and driving engineers mad while we were making a movie about people putting themselves to sleep. I realized the sound I was chasing was this distorted harmonic 12-string. And the only one that was in the building belonged to another composer. It was this funky old EDS-1275. I started using it, and I realized that it’s the best goddamn electric 12-string sound. Speaking to Guitar World’s Rod Brakes that same year, Marr explained what he particularly loved about the 12-string tone on the Gibson doubleneck: The combination of the [shallow] SG depth, that larger width, and the humbucker sound all adds up to a darker, deeper picture. It darkens that 12-string top-end chime up in a really good way. Also, you can leave the other unused half of the guitar ringing out in an open tuning, which sometimes works well at high volume.
When Zimmer asked Marr to work with him again on the soundtrack to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Marr set out to acquire his own Gibson EDS-1275 ahead of commencing work on the project and purchased this 1993 Cherry Red model from a dealer in Tokyo in 2013. Marr co-wrote the score with Zimmer as a member of the supergroup The Magnificent Six, which featured Marr, Pharrell Williams, Michael Einziger, Junkie XL, Andrew Kawczynski, and Steve Mazzaro. When the soundtrack was released alongside the film in 2014, Zimmer told the press: When we came together to form a band to create the music of this film, we did the opposite of what composers usually do – we wrote songs, and from the songs came the themes. We embraced a rock-and-roll ethos on this movie, and it paid off. Marr’s Gibson doubleneck can be heard throughout the soundtrack, including on ‘The Electro Suite’.
The doubleneck continued to play a central role on Marr’s subsequent soundtrack collaborations with Hans Zimmer, for 2015 American drama Freeheld and 2021 James Bond film No Time To Die. Speaking to Music Radar in 2022, Marr revealed: I have been using the 12-string a lot, like the electric 12-string on Inception. Most of the stuff I have been doing on the new Bond film are these really bugged-out noises that we all know about but that just cannot be done the same way on a synthesizer because it is to do with wires. It is to do with steel and wire and the microphonic nature of pickups, and spring reverbs, and that’s even before they are manipulated.
Notably, Marr used the doubleneck to record the title song ‘No Time To Die’ with Billie Eilish, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2022. Speaking to Stereogum in 2021, Marr revealed that Eilish rumours began circulating early on in the process: Straightaway I was hearing it and was like "That’s a fucking great idea man." Because I imagined what it might be like. I felt there’d be some interesting sonics in it, and it’d be modern, and it’d have a femininity to it. I’d seen a couple Billie shows, and I was really interested in Finneas' process. When I heard the song, I was like, "This is a no brainer, this is great." Because it's a Bond film, there was a lot of debate and discussion about the orchestration. Ultimately, though, for my part, I had to do very little [rather] than do too much. I did play a bit more than what ended up on the record, and it was reduce, reduce, reduce, because the power is in the composition and Billie's delivery, really. Not surprisingly, it should sound like a Billie Eilish track… The power of that song is in its subtlety… I had little to do with it besides a few guitar licks.
After acquiring this guitar in 2013, the doubleneck quickly became Marr’s go-to electric 12-string for solo recordings too, used on 2018 solo album Call The Comet and 2022’s Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. When listing the key guitars on the latter record for Music Radar, Marr confirmed: for the 12-strings I used the 1275 double-neck because it is the best electric 12-string sound.