Jackson and Corey Beaulieu have extended their longstanding collaboration with another two signature King Vs for the Trivium lead guitarist that are so aggressively pointy, so aggressively spec’d, that some jurisdictions might demand you have a license to use it in public.
This is the metal guitar as a weapon. Jackson doing Jackson things. It’s not even as though the King V was ever built for lounge jazz. This super-aggro descendent of the Flying V was designed for more nefarious musical intentions.
But way back when Beaulieu was spitballing a signature guitar with the Jackson R&D department, the idea for some serrations inside the V came to him, ergo, a more vicious take on the model was born.
These 2025 updates, available in your regular six-string or as a seven-string guitar – the latter with a reverse six-in-line headstock FTW – now come with a quilted maple top on a mahogany body, with a neck-through build as standard, and these neck-through Jackson guitars really sing. The quilt-maple top is reprised on the headstocks too.
Beaulieu is understandably stoked at these. This is the definition of living the dream; both of his mid-priced pro-quality Pro Series models come fitted with a Floyd Rose 1000 Series double-locking vibrato systems, with skinny maple necks reinforced with graphite rods, topped with ebony fingerboards with 24 big, fat jumbo frets.
And this being a contemporary Pro Series Jackson, of course it has the 12” to 16” compound radius fingerboard. Shreddable. Easy. As Jackson’s VP of product, Jon Romanowski, notes, this signature run “embodies everything Jackson stands for”.
It’s a high-performance platform for players whose tastes skew extreme.
“We’re thrilled to unleash these signature instruments and see how players around the world will push the boundaries with them,” says Romanowski.
We have buried the lede here. Or saved the best to last. It’s like Beaulieu says, they look the part, but it’s the choice of electric guitar pickups that seal the deal – these will help you split the atom.
“I’m so happy to announce the release of my new signature series guitar,” says Beaulieu. “Not only does it look fantastic, the thing I’m most excited about is it comes fully armed with my Signature Seymour Duncan Damocles Blackout pickups. It’s a true honor to be a part of the Jackson family and to continue our long partnership with this amazing new model.”
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These active pickups could be secret sauce your electric guitar tone has been waiting for, promising more “presence, balance and clarity” than your average active humbucker. Beaulieu has them wired up to a three-way selector, volume and tone.
Available now, the Pro Series Corey Beaulieu King V is available now, with the six-string KV6Q priced £1,299/$1,469, and the seven-string KV7Q priced £1,449/$1,579.
See Jackson for more details.