“John 5 was probably the only other dude who was playing a Tele in metal. By nature, it was designed for country and chicken pickin’”: Why Jim Root eschewed traditional metal guitars and made the Telecaster his main Slipknot instrument

Slipknot’s Jim Root is a die-hard Telecaster advocate, but the Fender electric guitar isn’t very metal. That, he says, is exactly the point.

If we’re to play into clichés, metal guitars should be pointed and mean-looking, like they were forged in the fires of hell; they should be builds that wouldn’t look out of place in the devil’s hands... basically the opposite of the Hello Kitty guitar.

But for one half of Slipknot’s riffalicious guitar tandem, Jim Root loves the appeal of a guitar more commonly associated with country twang than nu-metal thump.

“There's a Tom Petty record [1982’s Long After Dark] where he's holding the Tele up, and my parents had it,” Root tells Fender in a recent interview. “So much of what I'm drawn to is visual, and not based on knowledge. It's, ‘Oh, that looks cool, I want that.’ When you see someone as cool as Tom Petty, I was enamored by that.

Jim Root on How the Tele Has Been an Anchor of His Sound for Nearly Two Decades | Tele 75 | Fender - YouTube

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“Chrissie Hynde, Keith Richards, the legacy is undeniable,” he adds. “But John 5 was probably the only other dude who was playing a Tele in metal. By nature, it was designed for country and chicken pickin’ [hence John 5's gravitation towards it].

“It was the aesthetic of seeing all these rock icons with a Telecaster, mixed with time, place, and dumb luck, and wanting to go against the grain for a band that was labeled as nu-metal. I thought it would be cool to have something that’s not even close to being associated with metal in a band like that. There's a juxtaposition that feels like a fuck you.”

He also points to the rise of the Jazzmaster in metal, with bands like Loathe and Vianova some of its most prominent lovers.

Jim Root has released both Fender and Charvel-made Teles during his career, as well as a Fender Jazzmaster, as he continues swerving clichés.

“The whole punk rock and metal attitude is anti and going against the grain,” he states. “Everyone thought I should be coming out with some pointy metal guitar. No, how about we do a classic slab, iconic guitar? Like sunglasses, the classics never go out of style. There'll always be there.”

In related news, Root gave Guitar World exclusive insight into the making of his signature Telecaster, which arguably brought Fender into the modern age.