“He said, ‘We should make it look older.’ We’d hit it against curbs, use sandpaper, and put polish remover on the frets”: Julian Lage radically DIY aged his father’s prized Telecaster “before relic’ing was a thing”

Julian Lage on Improvisation with the Fender Telecaster - YouTube

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Julian Lage has reflected on his relationship with the Fender Telecaster, prompting him to recall an especially radical relic’ing experiment he and his father once conducted on a pristine Tele.

When Fender launched the Player II range earlier this year, Guitar Center quickly recruited Julian Lage to help market the lineup’s new Player II Telecaster. A smart move indeed, considering Lage is one of the most tasteful and expressive guitar players currently around.

Now, Lage has once again taken the Tele for a spin on Guitar Center’s YouTube channel in a video that also explores the influential jazz virtuoso’s history with the single-cut.

The Telecaster’s influence can be traced all the way back to Lage’s earliest days as an aspiring guitar player, when his father made a plywood model of Bruce Springsteen’s famed ‘The Mutt’ model that Lage would carry around and pretend to play.

He later upgraded to a proper functioning Stratocaster, but his father owned a Tele that they both decided to radically age using some DIY methods.

“My father got himself a Tele. It’s so beautiful, because my father, being a brilliant artist and having an aesthetic background – this was before relic’ing was really a thing – and he said, ‘I think we should make it look older.’

“We’d take the Tele out and hit it against curbs, and use sandpaper, and put polish remover on the frets. And it was immaculate – by today’s standards it would be considered perfection. And it was to us as well.”

NEW Fender Player II Telecaster Electric Guitar | Demo and Overview with Julian Lage - YouTube

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For Lage, his own passion for the guitar – and the Telecaster specifically – stems from his childhood and these experiences he shared with his father.

“His love of the instrument on a whole informed every thing I ever do as a guitar player, and specifically with the Tele. That’s something we bonded over.”

Despite having a few signature Collings signature guitars to his name, Lage is most often associated with the Telecaster. That may come as a surprise to some, considering the Tele isn’t widely regarded as a jazz guitar.

However, it has served Lage well over the years, with the jazzman once telling Premier Guitar he plays a Tele because “it’s a very true instrument”. In fact, Lage loves his Tele so much that he’s adopted a peculiar way to travel with it, which involves completely removing the neck.