Fender and Mark Hoppus have rekindled their partnership to recreate the blink-182 hero’s Stoned Fruit Jaguar Bass – but it will only be available for a very short period of time.
Hoppus has been a Fender loyalist since making the switch from Ernie Ball back in blink’s early days. Their latest signature guitar back in 2023 was an amalgamation of Fender’s Jaguar, Precision and Jazz Bass designs.
Now, that same bass has returned in the model-exclusive Guava Green colorway that can be seen on Hoppus’ current main stage bass. It also comes with Hoppus’ distinct Stoned Fruit artwork by way of a decal sticker collection.
The artwork, designed by Ohio-based artist ‘Burrito Breath’ – real name Phil Guy – is a distinctive feature of Hoppus’ OG model. These stickers let players “put their own spin on the instrument”.
Along with that colorway and matching headstock, the Stoned Fruit Jaguar Bass follows the precedent set by the earlier 3-Color Sunburst and Sea Foam Green models.
It has those reverse-mounted Seymour Duncan SPB-3 Quarter Pounder split-coil Precision Bass pickups, and the Jazz Bass-inspired Custom C maple neck. There’s also a HiMass Vintage bridge, and a custom Mark Hoppus neck plate with his Octopus logo.
Another curio can be found on the headstock: the model is simply labelled “Fender Jag”, rather than “Fender Jaguar”.
“I always called it a Jag, and Fender just put it on the headstock like that,” Hoppus tells Guitar World in a new interview about his latest signature. “I think it's cool because the shorthand made it from our parlance onto the headstock itself.”
Hoppus has been loyal to the Jag for some time. As he explains in his Guitar World interview, he landed on the offset after much experimentation.
“When I first started playing, the P-Bass was the bass that I always wanted,” he remembers. “That was my dream bass guitar. Then [producer] Jerry Finn and I started tinkering with that, and we moved to a Jazz Bass body with a P-Bass neck, and then I moved to a Jag body with a Jazz neck and Jaguar neck.
“I just like the angle on it. And when I started playing Jag basses, it just seemed like they had a little more midrange cut-through, which is what I'm always striving for in blink.”
Speaking about his affinity for hybrid Fenders, Hoppus told Guitar World back in 2023 that he landed on the Jazz Bass neck by accident.
“One of my basses got built with a thinner neck, and I liked the way it felt and played,” he noted. “Playing a standard P-Bass neck is like playing a baseball bat to me now. Still love them, but the Jazz neck is where I am today.”
Hoppus has a number of customized basses in his collection that’d be ripe for a reissue. But the Stoned Fruit model seemed perfect for this project.
He says, “When the idea to put the stickers on came around, I just thought it was a genius idea that people could customize it themselves.
“It could be something similar to the one that I have, they could just leave it off or put one or two stickers on. It seemed like a whole project rather than just a single bass in a certain color.”
“Mark has always had a very clear point of view about what he wants from an instrument,” Fender’s Chief Product Officer, Justin Norvell, says. “We wanted to recreate the instrument he actually plays while giving fans the opportunity to put their own stamp on it.”
The Mark Hoppus Stoned Fruit Jaguar Bass will only be available to order for 182 hours (geddit?) starting from today for $1,499, exclusively from Fender.com.
Guitar World’s full interview with Mark Hoppus will be published this week.
