I remember my dad sitting around the kitchen table with his buddies and
they always said, I have this million dollar idea.
And as a kid, I'm listening from a distance and
I'm like why aren't they doing anything with these million dollar ideas?
Like, I need to design this stuff.
My initial goal was to become an inventor.
But during the process I discovered the guitar.
I think everybody wants to become a guitar player at some point in their life, so
I veered in that direction.
When I first started, I wanted something that nobody had,
so I thumbed through all the guitar books and magazines and
stuff and kind of hodgepodge a whole bunch of guitars together.
In the process of developing these new guitar bodies and guitar shapes,
I probably made 50 different sketches of different guitars.
To introduce something so unique to Fender,
you have to introduce it in a familiar package.
The familiar package just happens to be a Telecaster configuration.
I think the guitar is more or less designed for people that are not
traditional guitar consumers or not into traditional guitar shapes.
They want something that's a little bit different, a little bit more edgy,
more futuristic looking.
My name is Josh Hisrt, I'm a guitar designer for Fender research and
development and this is the parallel universe series Meteora.
[MUSIC]
So the Meteora started in 2011,
that is the original sketch of the guitar.
If you take a close look at it,
I didn't quite remember what I used as a reference point but
this is printed very lightly on here is a jazzmaster neck.
So that kind of gives me a frame of reference for designing the body and
having the proper scale.
It evolved from there.
This is the second rendition of that.
Developed a little bit further.
These are the two concept guitars.
This is the tele-configuration here, and
it didn't vary very much from the original hand sketch.
The first prototype was made in our model shop.
I made the second prototype in my own garage.
It takes a lot of money to go to production with a new body shape.
There is a quite an orchestrated event to get something to a mass production level.
You have to do all the training, you have to buy all the machinery, you have
to do the fixturing and everything to make something that was so unique, or
not necessarily unique, but different to what Fender is traditionally known for.
I guess my design aesthetic kind of leans me towards
the more futuristic shapes, the more angular shapes.
With this particular guitar, I probably had quite a few iterations and
then once I finally settled on one, that's when I took it from the piece of paper and
started processing it in the computer.
I wanted to make something that was unbelievably traditional and
very familiar to Fender.
And then I wanted to make something that was crazy futuristic to say this is
where it could lead.
[MUSIC]
It was something unique, it was something that I designed,
it had a lot of potential.
If there was a lot of buzz associated with it,
then there was a possibility that it could turn into something.
When something goes to production for any of us designers,
it's always was a big deal.
It's bragging rights.
It's exiting to see your guitars hanging at the nam show.
Whenever your associated with any guitar, whether or not it's just a minor
modification or anything, we all go to all the guitar stores, check out our stuff.
My goal is that I hope that this guitar becomes a new platform for Fender.
It's almost as if it's a Fender style shaped,
just evolved a little bit more.
This guitar for the Fender world is definitely unique.
It's going to ruffle some feathers.
It looks familiar to our product line, but
it's different enough that it's going to get some attention.
It is for the better.