By Hayden Wright
Miley Cyrus, Joe Perry, Nile Rodgers and others will lend their support to VH1’s Save the Music Foundation with custom Gibson Les Paul guitars. Described as art pieces, the guitars were designed collaboratively with musicians and visual artists and will be auctioned off in October. Patti Smith, Chris Stapleton, Mark Ronson, Shawn Mendes, Wyclef Jean, Gary Clark Jr., Jim James of My Morning Jacket and The Roots also participated in the program.
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The guitar auction is part of the 20th anniversary for VH1’s Save the Music. The foundation supports arts programming at schools across the country—which is always under threat of budget cuts. The foundation has donated more than $50 million worth of instruments to more than 2,000 schools since it launched in 1997.
“It’s incredibly important to keep music in the schools as well as all the arts,” said Perry in a statement, reported Billboard. “Kids need to be exposed to music as early as possible. As in all the arts, it creates an outlet for their creativity. Having Music in school helped me find my calling.”
D*Face, Dabs Myla, ThankYouX, LolaBlu, Fleetwood Covington and others are among the artists selected to create guitars for the auction.
Watch a teaser for the project here:
