Name:John Huston
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Guitar Model: Frankenstein Jazzcaster
I call this guitar the "Fender Coward."
The neck, bridge, and control knobs are from a Fender Deluxe Nashville Telecaster I purchased new in 2004. Once a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails was installed in the bridge position it became my best-sounding guitar. However, unlike my other guitars, I struggled with frequent broken strings, particularly the A string. At one point, I had my guitar tech install graphite bridge saddles, hoping they would help alleviate the breakage. Alas, nothing seemed to work.
I chalked the breakage up to the attack my right hand was making with the strings—most of my other guitars have arm and rib contours, while the Tele does not. I went back to my guitar guy and asked about sanding down the body, Jeff Beck-style. At the cost he estimated, I could instead afford to buy a custom Warmoth body. So that's what I did. I chose the "Jazzcaster" body (Jazzmaster shape/weight, but cut for Tele neck pocket and guts) and chose yellow, my favorite color.
Photo by Meredith Goldberg
I later had the guys at Chicago Fret Works install a Rio Grande Bastard P-90-style pickup in the neck position, along with a "super switch" between the volume and tone knobs. This allows me to activate the neck pickup at any time, giving me the all-important ability to choose the bridge-and-neck combination that I couldn't otherwise with a 5-way selector and three pickups. I also installed new white-knob, 15:1 gear ratio tuners.
It's taken a bit of a beating these last couple years with my band, Stomatopod, but I love this guitar. It's the perfect combination of Telecaster (bridge and string height from the body), Jazzmaster (shape and balance), and Stratocaster (the middle pickup gives me oodles of sonic diversity).
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[Updated 9/22/21]
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Keith Urban has spent decades traveling the world and topping global country-music charts, and on this episode of Wong Notes, the country-guitar hero tells host Cory Wong how he conquered the world—and what keeps him chasing new sounds on his 6-string via a new record, High, which releases on September 20.
Urban came up as guitarist and singer at the same time, and he details how his playing and singing have always worked as a duet in service of the song: “When I stop singing, [my guitar] wants to say something, and he says it in a different way.” Those traits served him well when he made his move into the American music industry, a story that begins in part with a fateful meeting with a 6-string banjo in a Nashville music store in 1995.
It’s a different world for working musicians now, and Urban weighs in on the state of radio, social media, and podcasts for modern guitarists, but he still believes in word-of-mouth over the algorithm when it comes to discovering exciting new players.
And in case you didn’t know, Keith Urban is a total gearhead. He shares his essential budget stomps and admits he’s a pedal hound, chasing new sounds week in and week out, but what role does new gear play in his routine? Urban puts it simply: “I’m not chasing tone, I’m pursuing inspiration.”
Wong Notes is presented by DistroKid.
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