The ESP Guitar Company

It appears to be a problem with the grounding.

1) Try a new cord.

2) It's possible that one of the grounding wires is touching the tip of the cord when it's plugged in all the way. Keep the cavity cover off, and look at the cord as you plug it in.

3) It also could be that the portion of the jack that makes contact with the tip of the connector on the cord is bent too far, and is touching the sleeve portion of the connector.

3) Otherwise, I'd replace both the volume and tone pots and rewire the guitar.

Put your balls on it!

Thanks pushead. We did the first two steps, everything seemed like it should be.

We will be doing the third option. Don't really want to, but have no choice. hahah

It's not really that bad. You can bend the little arm that makes contact with the tip pretty easily.

But after thinking about it a bit, it's reasonably likely that one of your pots has gone bad, and it grounding out as you're turning it. It's not an expensive fix or incredibly difficult to replace a pot, but you'll need to know basic soldering to do it.