Last week, John Mayer and PRS announced a new collaboration with Land Rover, unveiling a host of limited Silver Sky signature guitars in Defender colorways.
The drop caused a stir online. Not because of the new colorways, or the fact that it debuted the black pickguard Silver Sky. Guitarists were too busy focusing on the name of the guitar.
Social media will have you believe that the Defender Silver Sky is a pointed, unsubtle barb at Fender over its ongoing Stratocaster copyright dispute. After all, the word ‘Defender’ literally contains ‘Fender’.
It seemed that everyone on the internet all thought the same thing. Fender had issued PRS a cease-and-desist letter over the Silver Sky. The De-Fender Silver Sky, therefore, was PRS hitting back at Fender in the best way possible: an S-style of its own with ‘Fender’ on it.
But is that really the case? Well, no. The timeline doesn’t add up. When we spoke to John Mayer about the collaboration earlier this month, he revealed that talks with Land Rover stretched back to the start of the year – before Fender scored the default EU ruling on which it’s based its entire legal strategy.
“We've been working on this since January or February, in terms of the loose conversation about it,” Mayer said. “Then, into March, we started getting into what colors they should be and how we make things work.”
If you needed any more evidence, Mayer’s passion for Defenders didn’t miraculously appear this year. That would’ve been one helluva coincidence. No, he’s been collecting the luxury 4x4s for years.
For the record, he bought his first Defender around 2007, in Arles Blue. Arles Blue is one of the colors included in the collaboration drop. The defense rests.
For Mayer, this wasn’t about getting back at his old endorser; it was pure wish fulfilment.
“It’s been a dream of mine for a long time to align with a brand that’s known so well for its colors and adapt those colors so that they live on the Silver Sky,” Mayer told us. “I’m a huge fan of Defenders and a collector of Defenders. This is marrying two things I love.”
Visit PRS Guitars to browse the full collection of Defender Silver Skys.
