Julien Baker has been more than loyal to the model that shaped her career – the Telecaster. Now, as she reflects on her career thus far, she looks back on the humble Tele that started it all.
“Historically, I played this light blue Mexican Tele that I got from the Guitar Center behind the steakhouse that I worked at,” she tells Fender. “I literally got my paycheck one day, and I was like, ‘I'm going to buy that Tele.’”
Baker went on to give her two cents about Fender’s role as one of the bedrocks of modern guitar design, and how the company contributed to the democratization of the instrument.
“I think about, in musical instrument history terms, Fender pioneering electric guitars for mass production, taking it from [being] a specialty instrument to something that could be sold in a Sears, that all these kids in the United States suddenly have their hands on and are emulating the Buddy Holly thing,” she explains.
She adds that she perceives the Telecaster as the “prototype of the electric guitar as a household instrument,” which eventually led to “someone's entry point into a guitar style.” In turn, this has given music history “the petri dish of what would become punk and hardcore music.”
“An entire archetype of sound is built on just the decisions that were made to make this accessible,” Baker continues. “And that's what's so cool about these instruments. Like, you learn a couple of bar chords, you get a cheap guitar, you start a band.”
The Telecaster is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and Fender recently marked the occasion with a star-studded concert at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
