There seems to be a little more resonation in it. So if you have a brand new guitar with brand new wood, it seems to excite it more like older wood would be. It seems to excite the wood to be more responsive than a solid body.
Does this offer the best of both worlds?Ī: It’s still a Fender and it still sounds like a Fender, but it puts a little different slant on the tone of it - it breathes a little bit more. Q: You played a 335 a lot and have done incredible recordings with that, but you’re also a big Strat player. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for 20 years. So I just thought it would be something fresh and unique to bring to the Strat that hasn’t been really done that much yet. There have been so many Strats made with this and that, and I thought it was a unique departure from the Strat as compared to changing the pick-ups or the tremolo which have already been done by people, and a lot of them done quite well. I like what it does - it’s really obvious to me on the 335. Q: Why a semi-hollow body Strat and why now, after so many years?Ī: I’ve always just dug 335s, and I think the semi-hollow body adds a little resonation to the guitar. While reflecting on the new instrument, Johnson shares the advantages of semi-hollow body guitars, the enduring qualities of vintage pedals and the benefits of playing acoustic music. We caught up with him on the road between concerts.
On the tail end of his 2018 Ah Via Musicom tour - where he played the album in its entirety - Johnson is slated to record a solo acoustic album, another electric record and has a solo acoustic tour booked for July. A longtime Fender Stratocaster player, Johnson has also extensively played a semi-hollow body Gibson ES-335. Johnson has an uncompromising approach to tone and is meticulous about both his live and recorded guitar sound. He has released 10 solo albums, performed on five live albums and made guest appearances on recordings with Chet Atkins, John McLaughlin, Adrian Legg and Mike Stern, among others. Known for virtuoso technique and highly musical performances, Johnson won the 1990 Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for “Cliffs of Dover” from the platinum album Ah Via Musicom. Though Fender has produced Thinline Telecasters since 1969, this is the first contoured Thinline Strat. The instrument has the same features as Johnson’s solid body model - a nitrocellulose lacquer finish, a custom quartersawn ‘57 Soft V one-piece maple neck, three Eric Johnson single-coil pickups, a vintage-style synchronized tremolo bridge, and staggered tuning machines - but features a Thinline semi-hollow alder body, a first for the Arizona-based company. While you’re at it, check out Post Malone playing the tune in a battle with super-producer Andrew Watt, and a lesson from EJ himself on Cliffs of Dover-style chord-based improv.Legendary guitarist Eric Johnson teamed up with Fender for his third signature model with the brand and it just so happens to be the first contoured semi-hollow body Stratocaster ever made. To learn more about the song that landed at #20 on Total Guitar’s 50 greatest guitar solos of all time, head here. “You can hear the tone difference, but that’s okay – the spirit is there.” Then it goes back to the Strat for the end. “In the studio, I tried a few versions until I got something that sounded right.”Īs for the gear he used to craft his now legendary tone? “It’s just an Echoplex into a Tube Driver, and that went into a 100-watt Marshall with a 4x12 cabinet,” he says, adding, “I played it all the way through with my Strat, but the solo didn’t sound as clear and elegant as I wanted, so I punched in a ES-335 for the main solo. “It varied every time I played it live,” he says. When he finally did, for Ah Via Musicom, he included a freeform improv section at the top, much like how he always did it onstage. Johnson goes on to say that he played Dover live for years before committing it to tape. If there was any craft involved, it came from this ethos of mine that I don’t want to play a bunch of notes I want to play music. In five minutes, I had the whole song down. I really like that one.’ ”įrom there, he continues, “I was just having fun connecting the dots. My mom popped her head in and said, ‘That’s a good song. It just came to me – right place, right time. One day, I started playing this descending-arpeggio pattern. At the time, he was living at his parents’ house, and, he says, “They had a music room, so I would use that to practice. Johnson penned the instrumental after coming off the road as a member of Carole King’s backing band in 1983.
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