“He took the lighter fluid, squirted it on the guitar and set it on fire. That might be the first relic’d guitar – and you can thank Seymour Duncan for that”: That time Adrian Belew DIY aged his Strat with a screwdriver, spray paint and motor oil

Adrian Belew is known for playing an array of Fender Stratocasters, but one of his most notable examples is a heavily relic’d brown sunburst model.

The beaten-and-busted Strat – which once featured on the cover of Guitar World magazine – was purchased in the late 1970s by Belew, who was in need of a new axe ahead of an upcoming tour he was set to undertake as part of Frank Zappa’s band.

However, the rather unsightly Strat wasn’t deemed fit for purpose until after a rather adventurous and experimental cosmetic overhaul that was carried out with the help of one of Belew’s famous friends.

As Belew reveals in the latest issue of Guitar World, such relic’ing isn’t the result of natural wear and tear over the years: it was an ahead-of-its-time DIY job instigated by Seymour Duncan.

“I went to a local used guitar store and was poking around, and in the back they had this kinda ugly Stratocaster hanging on the wall – like a brown sunburst,” Belew recalls. “I said, 'How much for this one?' They said, 'It doesn’t have a case, so we’ll give it to you for $285.' A pretty good buy, I thought.”

The guitar itself wasn’t too pretty, though, and Belew quickly turned to Duncan, who helped him overcome his grievances… with some screwdrivers, spray paint and lighter fluid.

“I called up Seymour when I was back out in California, and I said, 'What am I gonna do? I have this ugly-ass guitar.' He said, 'I know what to do.' He got in the trunk of his car and took out all these things – files and a screwdriver and spray paint and lighter fluid. 

“He laid it on the lawn, and before I could say anything, he took the lighter fluid out and squirted it on the face of the guitar and set it on fire. I said, 'Well, I guess I’m committed now!'

“Then he went to work. He dragged it through the grass. He sanded the back of the neck and put motor oil on it. He took screwdrivers and things and chipped some of the stuff off of it. I did the spray paint – a few bits here and there.”

Suffice to say it’s a far more archaic approach to artificial relic’ing, which has drastically improved in recent years owing to innovations pioneered by the likes of the painstaking Gibson Murphy Lab, and even Fender’s Heirloom aging process.

Still, Belew’s hands-on approach was somewhat ahead of its time, with the King Crimson hero going as far as to say it was the first of its kind.

“I’m gonna be bold and say that might be the first relic’d guitar,” he goes on, “and you can thank Seymour Duncan for that.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features a deep-dive into the Stratocaster’s 70th anniversary