Chad Kroeger is the proud new owner of a Swarovski Austrian crystal Gibson Les Paul Custom, designed by artist Amanda Dunbar who hand-placed 6000 individual crystals on the guitar as part of her Precious Rebels Collection.

"She took the logo from the cover of the [Dark Horse] album and put the crystals all over it," says Kroeger. "The design is just fantastic. It's very Vegas."

The Nickelback frontman debuted the dazzling specimen at Canada's Juno Awards March 29 in Vancouver where the multi-platinum-selling rock band opened the ceremony with the song "Something In Your Mouth" from its new album, Dark Horse.

"I'm going to play it every night during that song, absolutely," Kroeger says. "We start the show every single night with ['Something In Your Mouth'] so that will be there every single night until it winds up in a thousand pieces."

Kroeger, who was born in Hanna, Alberta and now lives just outside Vancouver, says he was first approached about playing an art guitar by Toronto's Tina Simpkin, entertainment and artist relations at Gibson Guitar.

"Tina from Gibson came to me and asked if I would like to do something very special for the Junos and I was intrigued immediately, very interested in what she wanted to do," he says.

"It was a labour of love, and brainstormed one cocktail night in Nashville in February when I was with the guys for their pre-production and rehearsals for this tour," Simpkin told Noisecreep. "I made a statement to Chad that it was time to take it up a notch and totally rock it like a rockstar – and well, that's the end result."

The 26-year-old Dunbar, another Canadian now living in Dallas, is primarily an oil painter but also creates these one-of-a-kind, playable art guitars for her Precious Rebels Collection. Each are fitted with custom hardware and accessories, as well as Dunbar's signature hidden inset with RFID technology in case of theft.

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