the show that night. I remember it being the
ugliest Stratocaster I had ever played in my life
(laughs), but I was still thankful to have it.
I got back from that trip and I had another show
to go play and literally didn’t have a guitar. It
was down in Turlock, CA at the historic theatre
down there. On my way to the show, no joke,
I called Guitar Center in Sacramento and they
had an Eric Johnson Strat. I asked them to
hold it for me, I went down, and I don’t even
think I played it, I just bought it and drove to
Turlock. The guy who was promoting the show
happened to be friends with a great guitar tech
from the Bay Area named Gary Brower. Gary
happened to be there, so I walk in the door and
Matt says, “Hey, I don’t know if you know Gary
Brower, but he’s here to help you with anything
you need on your guitar.” So I said, “Look, I just
bought this, can you just do your thing?” Half
an hour later he said, “Try this”, and I went out
on stage that night and it was as if I had been
playing that guitar for twenty years. I thought,
“Gosh, I didn’t you know you could buy an off
the shelf guitar like this!”
I went down to Los Angeles for a photo shoot
with Boss/Roland and brought that guitar.
Some of the people reading this probably saw
that, it was a full-page ad and in a bunch of
guitar stores and stuff with the pedals and
whatnot. At that photo shoot we were talking
Fender Booth, Summer NAMM 2019
about the Eric Johnson guitar and the guy are a few people who build those, it’s a team in
asked how long I had had it, and so I told him the Custom Shop. When you get a Masterbuilt
the story. He said, “Are you connected with guitar, that’s built by one person from start to
the folks at Fender?” I said no, and he said, finish. So, I have another gold guitar that was
“You have to connect with Mike Eldred, he’s a Masterbuilt that I still have.
Christian guy who runs the Custom Shop.” He
88
basically called Mike on the spot and connected Then we started talking about a Signature type
us. I told Mike the story of what had happened, thing, if it should be a Masterbuilt custom order
and they built me another gold guitar to replace only type of thing. But my interest was really
the one that got stolen. And that guitar is the in having then do a guitar that was far more
one that is on the cover of the Today is the Day accessible to more people, I really believed
album. That was my main guitar for quite some in the design features that we had put in the
time. From there we did a Masterbuilt version of Masterbuilt guitar, it was really the closest
it. When you see a guitar that just says Custom thing to what the Signature is now. To make
Shop that’s what they call Team Build, so there a long story hopefully shorter, the company
November 2019
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