Did Adrian Belew own the first relic’ed guitar? Check out the story of his “ugly” Strat
Adrian Belew thinks he may have owned the first ever intentionally relic’ed guitar, thanks to a little help from the Seymour Duncan.
Back in the late 1970s, he needed a new guitar quickly after his Strat went missing on tour, and found an “ugly” sunburst model going for cheap. Not wanting to take this ugly duckling Strat on the road, Belew called in Duncan for help, who well and truly beat it up.
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Guitar.com formerly took a look into the history of the relic guitar, and though the notion of ageing or distressing an instrument had existed for decades, the Relic didn’t really become a ‘thing’ until the Fender Custom Shop introduced its Relic Series in 1995.
Up until then, fake wear was applied to guitars either to help repairs made to valuable old instruments match the look of the rest of the original, or to create forgeries. So Belew’s beaten model back in the ‘70s may well have been one of, if not the first, relic guitars.
Speaking to Guitar World in celebration of the Fender Strat’s 70th birthday, Belew recalls losing his natural-finish Strat when he joined Frank Zappa’s band in 1977. “I don’t know if it was stolen or if the airline lost it, but that Strat was never seen again. I had two weeks before we were going to start the European dates [in 1978], and we were going to rehearse in London for 10 days or something,” he shares.
“At the time I was in Nashville, where I live now. I went to a local used guitar store and was poking around, and in the back they had this kinda ugly Stratocaster hanging on the wall – like a brown sunburst. [Laughs] I said, ‘How much for this one?’ They said, ‘It doesn’t have a case, so we’ll give it to you for $285.’ A pretty good buy, I thought.
“Seymour Duncan used to live where I grew up in Cincinnati, and he was a spectacular guitar player in that area long before I even played out. I called up Seymour when I was back out in California, and I said, ‘What am I gonna do? I have this ugly-ass guitar.’ He said, ‘I know what to do.’”
Belew continues, “He got in the trunk of his car and took out all these things – files and a screwdriver and spray paint and lighter fluid. He laid it on the lawn, and before I could say anything, he took the lighter fluid out and squirted it on the face of the guitar and set it on fire. I said, ‘Well, I guess I’m committed now!’”
Duncan went on to sand down the back of its neck and put motor oil on it, and even drag the guitar through grass. “He took screwdrivers and things and chipped some of the stuff off of it. I did the spray paint – a few bits here and there. I’m gonna be bold and say that might be the first relic’ed guitar – and you can thank Seymour Duncan for that. I took it back the next day, and Frank said, ‘If you wanted to ruin your guitar, Adrian, why didn’t you loan it to a friend?’”
Belew still has the Strat in question. Maybe if you catch him on the road for his King Crimson tribute tour, you just might spot it in action.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
