My first "real" Fender:
I got started in music at age 14 playing bass guitar. I still remember telling my father I wanted to get a bass, and him saying "Why do you want to play bass? Wouldn't you rather play the 6-string?" And I think the reason was the bass player at my mother & grandmother's church. He was really good, and he was a big fan of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Well that, and the front-man of the punk band NOFX. When I decided to learn to play I already had plans to be in a punk band with my best friend James who played guitar.
Eventually I got a Hartke bass starter kit. Hartke is a well-known manufacturer of bass amplifiers, and they had basically branded a cheap bass to sell with their 25-watt combo amp. James and I tried our hand at punk for a while along with another guitar player(who went on to become a professional musician), but we gave up without ever finding a proper drummer.
James and I would end up forming another band that played hardcore/metalcore music. We'd added Jon on drums, and Kevin on guitar and even managed to play a few shows. One of them with local legends.
That band would then break up, but in reality James and I were onto the next band with a better drummer, another guitar player, and a vocalist. All of which were good friends of mine.
I'd eventually end up in a few other bands because as it turned out bands almost always needed a bass player or a vocalist, and I even took on that role in yet another two bands.
But playing bass alone just isn't as fun.
A friend eventually gave me a $100 acoustic Ibanez, and I was hooked on learning songs by myself at home. And then I knew I needed an electric guitar. I ended up getting a Squier Telecaster by Fender. Which was ironic because when I was younger I'd always absolutely hated the look of the Telecaster. The body shape, but especially the headstock always bothered me. Not to mention they were traditionally country and blues guitars, and I was always into aggressive metal and punk. But for some reason I knew it had to be a Telecaster. The single-coil "lipstick" neck pickup on my Squier has this bubbly and bright sound that's just beautiful. But it's not ideal for playing music with a lot of gain or distortion.
So I decided I was going to try to get an Epiphone Les Paul. I went to the guitar store with every intention on getting a dual-humbucker Les Paul like the one my ex-girlfriend had. It was perfect for playing metal music, and for reasons I still can't quite figure out Gibson/Epiphone guitars are so much more comfortable for playing the low-end chords than any Fender. On Fenders it's like a strain on the wrist.
Somehow I ended up getting ANOTHER Telecaster, and even worse yet it's almost the same color as my Squier. But this one is the Telecaster Deluxe, and it's quite unique.
The Telecaster was Leo Fender's original guitar design first released in 1951. It would go on to become a huge hit in those early days of blues & rock. Fender's design was unique because it well-made, but also very affordable due to it's bolt-on beck. In contrast, Gibson and other guitars traditionally had a body and neck-sleeve design carved out of a single piece of wood. The fretboard and the rest of the neck would sit inside of that single piece. This also meant if you broke or damaged your neck it was the end of the guitar. But with a Fender you could simply get another finished neck and have it bolted on. The original Teles were made of soft swamp Ash wood which along with the bolt-on neck would give the guitar this bright and unique sound.
In the 1970's music was rapidly evolving. Distortion and high-gain effects were becoming all the rage, even in some parts of country music. Hard rock was in it's infancy, but undeniably had a long future ahead with bands like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Black Sabbath to name just a few.
Fender's second successful guitar, the Stratocaster already dominated in rock, psychedlic, and blues of 60's,. But Fender set out to re-define the Telecaster to keep it relevant with these changing sounds.
They ended up designing the Deluxe which is like the lovechild of a Stratocaster & Telecaster. It has that unique shape of the Telecaster, but uses the larger more prominent headstock of a Strat, and the mushroom-like knobs. But the Deluxe features two Fender humbucker pick-ups that aren't found on either design. Each pickup has it's own volume and tone knobs, and a 3-position selector that's located above the strings. The name humbucker comes from the design of placing two coils in parallel which negates the hum or buzz of a single-coil that typically occurs when using high-gain or overdrive amplification or effects.
And I love it. It's much better for playing loud with lots of gain, but also has a wonderful rich clean channel.
