The thin line between love and hate has never been better illustrated than by Mike McCready’s 1960 Fender Stratocaster.
When he bought it in the early 90s with the first royalty cheque from Pearl Jam’s multiplatinum debut, Ten, observers feared the sunburst double-cut would go the way of the “maybe 50” instruments smashed to matchwood over the course of the Seattle guitarist’s career.
Certainly, there’s been serial abuse, with the stillactive Strat bearing the scars from McCready’s paintflaying picking style (not to mention his tendency to take a slugger’s swing at a speaker cab). But as the 57-year-old grunge icon tells us, there was always something about this particular vintage that stayed his hand, and in recent times the ’60 has not just survived but proliferated, with Fender’s 2021 Custom Shop recreation (yours for $15,000) now followed by a thriftier production model, listing at £1,649.
Releasing an affordable version of your Custom Shop Strat feels like an egalitarian decision. Do you still remember being a penniless musician?
“Yeah, I do. My first guitar was aMateo ‘Les Paul’, which cost 100 bucks in about 1978. After that, I remember flipping burgers, trying to raise money to buy aKramer Pacer. That was a $700 guitar, a lot of money back then. So after we did my more expensive Custom Shop signature Strat –which is amazing –I wanted to make sure Ihad something people could afford. That had a great neck on it and good-sounding pickups. That sounded like my original ’60 –which I thought was a ’59 for many years. Y’know, a guitar that sounded as close to the original as it could.”
Does this new production model stand comparison to the Custom Shop version?
“I think it does. We went back and forth with Fender on Pearl Jam’s last European tour. They would send me prototypes of this latest Strat and we ended up kind of Frankenstein-ing two of them together, the neck from one and body from another. Iwanted the pickups to sound incredible. It took a second to get there. Fender was very quick and made it happen, but initially they were very high-end-y. They fixed that, and we finally put it all together. So the Strat I have on this tour is the one that’s out for retail now. And I’ve used it on about 10 different songs live.”
Which features of the guitar are particular cornerstones for you?