“There were two camps. I came out of the Yardbirds camp – the Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck kind of things”: Why Todd Rundgren chose to play Gibsons over Fenders

Fender and Gibson are two of the most iconic electric guitar brands of all time – and Todd Rundgren has stated that, in his heyday, you either played one or the other. Players had to pick their poison.

The versatile guitarist, producer, and songwriter, who's worked with Meat Loaf, New York Dolls, and Grand Funk Railroad, emerged from the psychedelic scene of the 1960s. He was well aware of what was happening across the Atlantic at the time, and that awareness informed his choice of guitar.

“In those days, there were kind of two camps,” he tells Guitar Player in a new interview. “I came out of the Yardbirds camp – the Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck kind of things – and you played a Gibson guitar.”

The other camp, which played Fenders, had Jimi Hendrix as its leader. But Rundgren aligned himself with the “classical” playing styles of the other Yardbirds group, in contrast to Hendrix's liquid fire.

Indeed, it was Hendrix's unique prowess with a Strat, as well as the differences in their individual styles and techniques, that solidified Rundgren's early loyalty to Gibson. At the time, he felt he couldn't get what he needed from a Fender.

“I played a Les Paul, which had no whammy bar, no tremolo tailpiece on it,” he explains. “Jimi played a Stratocaster and made full use of the whammy bar. I personally didn’t have the sense of freedom Jimi Hendrix had, in that he might not play the same thing every time.

“A lot of what I was listening to before that was kind of classical guitar solos that Beck and Clapton would play, and you would learn those literally in the same way you would learn every George Harrison guitar solo – literally. They’re like primers in guitar playing; you’d learn how to play this melody and be expected to play it at the drop of a hat.”

As Rundgren notes, it was the work of Cream- and Yardbirds-era Clapton and Beck – both of whom played Gibsons at the time – that pushed him towards that camp. Notably, Jimmy Page, another Yardbirds alumni, also played a Les Paul during his time in the group.

Ironically, while Page has largely remained loyal to Gibsons – though by no means has he played them exclusively – Clapton and Beck would go on to softly change camps. So too would Rundgren himself.

For example, Beck's Oxblood Les Paul, which he used to record his game-changing solo record Blow by Blow before it became the world’s most expensive LP last year, was later joined by a Fender Strat.

Despite previously waxing lyrical about the instrument’s tonal quality, Beck explained his U-turn by describing the Strat as providing “endless color,” and it was that instrument that he played almost exclusively for the last 40 years of his career.

Clapton, meanwhile, also developed an affinity for Fenders. While Rundgren would eventually take ownership of Slowhand's iconic 'The Fool' SG, Clapton himself later stuck largely to Strats.

Maybe that's why Rundgren also began embracing Fenders and S-types later on. Indeed, although Hendrix's liquid fire on the whammy bar may have seemed out of reach for Rundgren at the time, he later began playing a black Fender Mustang, making its tremolo system a core part of his sound in the late 1970s.

Clapton's 'The Fool' SG, which Rundgren once bought for $500, sold earlier this year as part of the Jim Irsay Collection auction for $3,003,000.