are some really great guitars being built today , it doesn ’ t mean that they ’ re all amazing but it doesn ’ t mean that only vintage instruments are the ones that sound great , I played a lot of bad sounding vintage guitars . But I kept looking and kept looking .
I was in California , it was my first time doing a showcase with my band , and I walked into the Guitar Center in Hollywood . I walked into the vintage room and saw this Strat hanging on the wall amongst a whole lot of other guitars , but it just caught my eye . I picked it up , and the moment I played it I thought , oh my gosh this is the guitar , this is it . Everything felt perfect , it sounded great , but I couldn ’ t afford it , so I had to leave that day without it . It was really disappointing and I thought I would never see this guitar again . A year later we came back to L . A ., I had my first gig booked at the House of Blues as a headline artist . The first thing I did when I hit the ground in L . A . was head straight back to that Guitar Center to see if that guitar was there , and it was still there hanging on the wall . I picked it up and played it just to make sure that it was the guitar , and it was . I still couldn ’ t afford to buy the guitar , but I knew that if this time I left without it I would never see it again , so I refused to leave without it . My Dad and my A & R guy and one of my attorneys were all hanging out there saying we needed to leave to go to sound check , and I said , “ I ’ m not leaving without this guitar ”, and my Dad said , “ You can ’ t afford that guitar !” but I was not going to leave without it . So they kind of huddled up and decided they could split the cost of the guitar amongst the three of them under the condition that I pay them back . So that ’ s how I got the guitar , it ’ ll be with me until the day I die and hopefully in my family forever .
There are so many things about that guitar that
I have such a deep connection with . I ’ ve been around the world so many times , and its been on every record I ’ ve ever done since I got it . So one of the inspirations of this guitar was to really duplicate the neck profile of that ’ 61 Strat . That ’ s kind of been my point of reference for any guitar that I ’ ve built over the years with Fender . This is the first time that we really captured the shape and feel of the neck of my ’ 61 Strat with a new production model , I think almost to a ‘ T ’. I ’ m really proud of that , those guys really nailed it .
[ WM ] Tell us about the fingerboard radius !
[ Kenny ] The thing is , vintage Strats are 7¼ , so I ’ ve been playing 7¼ forever . But after a while you wear the fret board down , and it gets to be a little flatter . When we were spec-ing out this guitar , my previous signature model was a 12 ” radius , and it was flat so it plays a little