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Writer's pictureTornelli Guitars

Why the Fender Telecaster is my Inspiration

Updated: Oct 7, 2020

The Telecaster is an iconic guitar. Ask anyone to name three guitars and the Telecaster will definitely make the list. However I'm about to share my shame that it was only after

playing guitar for about 20 years that I even tried one, and thus my GAS was gone for good.

Leo nailed it on his first attempt, as any Tele owner will tell you, so why didn't this iconic guitar find its way onto my 'must do' list until a few years ago? Thinking back to my early days, my guitar choices were born out of my heroes; Angus, Jimi et al. I wanted to be those guys, play their music and sound like them. I managed to work my way through an SG, a 335 dot until I reached the mighty Strat and that's where I stayed for so many years.


Secondly, as a younger man I bought guitars with my eyes as much as my heart and the slab sided, single cut dimensions of the Tele never really excited me. I couldn't appreciate the perfection of its simplicity and purity of purpose.


Until....


Emigrating to a new country led to selling off all my guitar gear and by the time I got round to searching for a new guitar, I did so with a new and open mind. Feeling like an unwitting participant in inception or a Derren Brown show, everything to which I was exposed seemed to be nudging towards the original Fender, until finally I succumbed and some 20 years later, plugged in a Tele. Cue angelic sounds of epiphany and beams of light, my search was well and truly over.


From the immediate weighty surprise when you're handed the guitar, to the feel of the chunky neck and sheer aural punch delivered at the business end of the gain setting, I

loved everything about it. Thus, when it came to designing my own guitar there was really only one contender.


However, many companies and indeed independent builders provide high end replicas in about every configuration you can think of. So perhaps inspired by my love for classic and custom cars, I had a restomod idea in my head.


The concept is to take something classic and remake it in your own image, producing a new take on what it can be. Its an appreciation for the original as opposed to a critique of its faults, its an acknowledgement that there are no faults, just features. And so, in essence, its a love letter to the original and an opportunity to (perhaps) interest those that may otherwise not choose to sample the Tele.


There is a saying 'go to what you know', and for my part, this meant that the key factor that would have made me pick up a Tele all those years ago was if it had grabbed me on an emotional, that is to say, aesthetic level. So when I came to designing my own guitar, this was the 'hook' for me. But an updated style has to be sympathetic to the spirit of the Tele and modernity has to be balanced with classic design. Thus a single piece ash body, in all natural satin finish, with double binding seemed the perfect route, finished with a minimalistic but functional pickguard.


Due to my love of the traditional maple neck, maple fretboard on a Tele, a slight update to a roasted maple neck but retaining the original shape and feel was the next logical step. The feel and sound were the key components for me to retain, so a string through body, Fender custom shop pickups, along with top end hardware, completed my design and cemented what I consider to be a guitar as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional.


My hope is that it is as complimentary to the Tele as it can be, no better, just a different flavour.

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