Are Rickenbacker guitars difficult to play?

They are not difficult to play but they do feel different. They have thin, narrow necks compared to some standard electric guitars, meaning extravagant lead playing is not massively easy. For every other style of playing, Rickenbackers are rather lovely to play.

Which Rickenbacker guitar did John Lennon play?

John Lennon famously played a Rickenbacker 325 model, a 1958 model which he bought in Hamburg in the early days of the Beatles.

How are Rickenbackers with heavy distortion?

Rickenbackers are not known for being used with heavy distortion but there are no real reasons why they shouldn't be... just understand that most of them are semi hollow guitars with single coil pickups! Since Rickenbackers sound great to begin with, they also sound good with tons of gain on them, although they are not the easiest guitars to 'tame' under such circumstances!

Who plays Rickenbacker guitars?

For famous names, check out this list: Pete Townshend, The Edge, Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Jeff Buckley, Paul Weller, John Lennon, Johnny Marr, Geroge Harrison, Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles) and Roger McGuinn (The Birds). And that is just guitarists! Here are some bass players who use Rickenbackers: Lemmy (Motorhead), Youth (Killing Joke), Chris Squire (Yes), Nicky Wire (manic Street Preachers), Geddy Lee (Rush), Cliff Burton (Metallica), Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath), Jerry Only (The Misfits) and Scott Pilgrim (Sex Bob-omb)!

What type of music are Rickenbackers good for?

Well, despite being very distinctive sounding, Rickenbacker guitars are used in many genres. To generalise, we'd day that melodic pop, indie and rock bands are the main people who take to Rickenbackers, but their sound lends itself to most musical genres. They are famous for jangly types of music such as The Byrds, The Smiths and early R.E.M. but that is hardly the limit of the Rickenbacker sound. As for basses, all genres from pop to punk and metal have Rickenbacker fans. Genres like jazz and funk don't tend to but there are no real reasons for this.