Fender Guitars

Fender creates commemorative guitars for legendary guitarists that have played Fenders in their careers.
Here we show the weight of these legends’ legacies through the eyes of their guitars.
Copywriter: Zach Reed
Art Director: Shane Matula

Violin bow sold separately.

 I didn’t really expect to be handled like a proper instrument. I always thought some rockstar would pick me up, tune my strings and start slamming away. Little did I know I was destined for the lead guitarist of Led Zepplin. Jimmy really did handle me like any other musicians, except for the violin bow. Maybe I should have seen it coming from a member of the Yardbirds, I don’t know. We had no guidebook for what we were doing. He wanted to be an innovator, and I had no idea if I could do it. But the first time he glided a violin bow across my stings I started singing a different tune. Together, we got a band together and while we weren’t the most popular in the UK, we became wildly famous in the states. Show after show, it truly was reefer madness. We became the Godfathers of Metal and the media hated it. How many headbangers do you think know their Advil diet started because of a British man with a guitar and a violin bow? Not many, I’d wager.  But if you already knew that, why don’t you pick me up and inform them.

“…Drugs are bad for you, they’ll fuck you uP.”

I knew Kurt throughout, well, his whole career really. And man, he got up to some shi-. What? I can’t say shi-? O-o-okay. We traveled America, inspiring the youth and pissing off parents. We were disgusted by the sides of humanity we saw and often poured that feeling into our sound. For example, we hated Pearl Jam, Axl Rose, and The Grateful Dead. We experimented with a lot of sounds, worldviews, and substances. Everyone knows that Kurt had his demons, I mean we spearheaded grunge, and he was a 90’s rockstar. If he didn’t have any problems, then who does? Am I right? Anyway, Kurt didn’t want people to take the path he did. He hoped that people wouldn’t turn to drugs whenever, whenever, life happened. He stayed real. Bluntly saying, “...Drugs are bad for you. They will fuck you up.” And that’s written on one of his statues. Well except the fuck. Aberdeen didn’t like the f---. But of course die-hard Nirvana fans show up every once and a while to maintain Kurt’s image. The uncut version, imbued with the spirit of what we were singing. These true fans filled in the rest of his words with a sharpie, picking up where he left off. To this day they still graffiti in his message. So. I suppose the question is: If you’re one of his true fans, why not put down the sharpie, and pick up our commemorative guitar to butcher “Smells like Teen Spirit”, just like we did.

Nothing says the blues like your own sorrow.

Everyone says that the blues comes from within yourself and the instrument is just the medium. Well if that’s true, then I’ll tell you firsthand the type of person Stevie was. He left everything out on the stage. We played shows at full force, keeping the intensity going from beginning to end. We laid right into it the moment we took the stage, and never gave an inch. Stevie gave everything for his music. He traveled the country with his band in a milk van with barely enough to get by. Our first record was only recorded because we planned a tour to end in LA. so we could afford to travel to the recording studio. And we kept that lifestyle. Hard and fast for seven years. Often during shows, he’d make direct eye-contact and gestures to every woman he found attractive. The entire show. Naturally, that’s when I added that little extra umph to the melody and would  almost break He wanted the world to see exactly who we were – A true- to- form Texas band with a work ethic. We turned down first-class treatment so we could stay with our band, our pride and joy. A musical career that lasted seven short years, shook the world. If you feel up to leaving it all on stage, pick up this commemorative guitar of the great SRV; and go shake yours.