“Fender needed something to bring them into more modern times”: How Jim Root’s radical signature Telecaster updated a Fender mainstay for the 21st century

Jim Root has looked back on the development of his game-changing Fender signature guitar, and discussed why it was such a monumental launch for both him and the company.

Ever since Fender’s flagship Telecaster became the world’s first mass-produced solidbody electric guitar almost three-quarters of a century ago, the design has remained relatively constant.

Sure, the recipe has been refined to the nth degree, and there have been whole tiers of Teles over the years, but the overarching spirit has largely remained unchanged.

That was until Slipknot’s Jim Root came along and completely flipped things on their head with a signature that reimagined the traditional T-type as a no-nonsense, frill-free heavy metal machine.

It pushed the boundaries of what a Tele could be, bringing it into the modern age and alleviating the stigma that came with tweaking traditional Fender builds. John Mayer even praised it as what “every Tele should look like in this day and age”.

Speaking in the new issue of Guitar World, Root recalled the making of his signature Tele and explained why it came at a pivotal time for him and Fender.

“I was endorsed by the Fender Custom Shop, and they wanted to push me toward Charvel,” he remembers.

“Their prototypes weren’t landing, so I talked to Alex Perez [from Fender's research and development team] – who, if it weren’t for him, I probably wouldn’t be a Fender artist – and I said, ‘Can we just come back to the Fender side of things?’”

The Slipknot guitarist had his eye on the Tele, so when Perez helped him bring things back to the Fender fold, he knew where to start.

“If I walked on stage with a Jackson or B.C. Rich, that would be typical, so I wanted to take something classic and iconic and make it functional for what I do,” he explains of his decision.

“And I think Fender, at the time, needed something to, not erase the stigma of being an iconic, older company, but bring them into more modern times. It made sense, and Fender was down. I got lucky. The stars aligned!”

The concept of the Root Tele was simple. It had to pay homage to the original design, but in a way that would cater to Root’s aesthetic and tonal needs.

“I wanted to be minimalist with it. I almost thought about trying to see if we could lose the pickguard, but I wanted it to be traditional-looking,” he states. “I went with the modern string-through, hardtail bridge and the EMG pickups I was already using.

“I wanted it to be a workhorse I could bash around, beat up, hit with metal pipes and get thrown into kegs without breaking in half.”

Root’s Tele is one of Fender’s most notable signature releases, and was later followed by a similarly radical Jazzmaster and Stratocaster. And, although the Slipknot guitarist initially wanted to steer clear of the Charvel route, he did launch a signature guitar with the company a few years ago.

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