Florida Metal Musician Turns Uncle's Skeleton Into 'Skelecaster' Guitar

Tampa musician Prince Midnight made the ghoulish guitar to honor his Uncle Filip, "the biggest metal head I've ever known."

A metal-loving musician in Tampa, Florida, has just made a guitar unlike any other ― no bones about it.

That’s because Prince Midnight made his “Skelecaster” using both the remains of a leftover Fender Telecaster and the bones of his dearly departed Uncle Filip, the man who introduced him to the rock genre back in the 1990s.

Prince Midnight turns his uncle into a guitar
Prince Midnight turns his uncle into a guitar
Courtesy of Prince Midnight

Filip died in a motorcycle accident in Greece in 1996 at the age of 28, and his skeleton was donated to a local college.

“After 20 years, he ended up in a cemetery my family had to pay rent on. Like, literally in a wooden box,” Midnight told HuffPost. “It’s a big problem in Greece because the Orthodox religion doesn’t want people cremated.”

So, with the help of a local funeral home, Prince Midnight had Uncle Filip’s bones sent from Greece.

But the plot thickened when he declined to buy a cemetery plot for Uncle Filip.

Tampa musician Prince Midnight attached his dead uncle's skeleton to a discarded Fender Telecaster.
Tampa musician Prince Midnight attached his dead uncle's skeleton to a discarded Fender Telecaster.
Prince Midnight

The bones were in pieces, and after a few weeks of showing them to his friends, Prince Midnight decided that since Uncle Filip was a metal head “we’d turn him into a guitar.”

Friends familiar with making guitars from scratch warned him that a bone guitar wouldn’t sound as good as one made from wood, but Prince Midnight was undeterred.

“I didn’t care,” he said.

Turning Uncle Filip’s remains into a ghoulish guitar was a challenge. First, Prince Midnight had to weld a metal bar to the spine to attach the neck to the skeleton.

Then he had to make sure the neck and bridge would be exactly parallel so the guitar strings would freely ring.

He also had to put a jack for the cord into Uncle Filip’s hip bone.

Friends familiar with making guitars from scratch warned him that a bone guitar wouldn’t sound as good as one made from wood, but Prince Midnight was undeterred.“I didn’t care,” he said.
Friends familiar with making guitars from scratch warned him that a bone guitar wouldn’t sound as good as one made from wood, but Prince Midnight was undeterred.“I didn’t care,” he said.
Prince Midnight

Although Filip’s skull was included in the remains, Prince Midnight said it was damaged and couldn’t be added to the head of the guitar.

Prince Midnight is forbidden by law from selling the “skelecaster,” but he’s having fun stringing along Uncle Filip.

Still, he admits his project caused some awkward moments with his mom.

“At first, she said it was sacrilegious and the work of the devil ― you know how moms are,” Prince Midnight said. “But I asked her, ‘Uncle Filip was the biggest metal head of anybody. Where would he rather be? In the ground or shredding?’”

“She said, ‘shredding.’”

Florida-based musician Prince Midnight shows off his guitar made from his Uncle Filip's bones.
Florida-based musician Prince Midnight shows off his guitar made from his Uncle Filip's bones.
Courtesy of Prince Midnight

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