(electric guitar strumming)
(electric guitar crackling)
(chord striking)
(chords playing)
(electric guitar solo progressing)
(electric guitar toning down)
- Every time I build something,
like I have to be like obsessed
and passionate about doin' it.
(electric guitar strumming)
I've made one double-neck before
and this one was kind of a no-brainer
'cause you know,
I really love Marauders and
you know, the electric twelve
those are kind of my babies and
the double-neck Marauder was just
an obvious thing for me.
I'm Carlos Lopez, (funk rock music)
Fender Custom Shop Master Builder.
I got hooked up with Paul Frank.
He's kind of part of the Fender family.
He's worked with a lot of the builders over at the shop.
And I caught wind that he was interested
in doin' a Marauder.
(funky guitar solo playing)
I started talking to Paul and we became easy friends.
- Hi, my name is Paul Frank.
I'm a designer, artist, most known
for my characters like the monkey behind me.
But first I'm a guitar player and a Fender fan.
(electric guitar strumming)
I've been playing guitar since the '80s.
So, I've met a lot of people in bands and
through that kind of association,
we met up with some of the Fender people,
and it got to work with Fender on a number
of collaborative guitar designs
both for other artists and as a, giveaways as well.
(electric guitar progression playing)
This year, when Carlos asked me to help him
with a guitar,
I thought, well, let's push it.
(electric guitar playing)
What would you want?
You know, what would be a fantasy guitar?
You know, I want a 12-string and a Marauder,
and I want lots of switches.
It's a dream, you know, like, what do you dream of?
(electric guitar string bending)
(powerful electric guitar playing)
- [Carlos] Wow!
(guitarist laughs) (guitarist strums)
- I'm still not worthy of this.
(electric guitar strumming)
(electric guitar playing)
- [Carlos] I have my way of how I start.
And basically, I'll have just
the two-dimensional representation of the skeleton of it.
I sent it to Paul and then he sent it to me with
you know, different colors.
He kind of brought it more to life.
- Carlos is great!
He's always open to tryin' new things and not afraid
to push the limits
and nothing's too crazy.
I'm like, what have we tried?
What have we used in 1964 logo,
or, you know, just different.
There's a lot of nerd guitar stuff going on.
- He wanted to do the Starcaster headstock
on the bottom part of it.
(electric guitar playing) I decided to go
with the you know,
the big peg just because what the Marauder is to me
is with that headstock.
The body part was kinda easy.
I did a couple of rough drafts and I sent it
to him and he said,
"Yeah, that looks great."
After that, it was just,
"Well, what color should we paint it?"
And, you know,
"What pickup should we put in it?"
You know.
He had a vision,
Let's do the the black pickup covers just so it matches
you know, and let's do the one ply parch guard,
and with the sea foam green.
- What was fun about the 12-string
was that it had those split pickups.
And I thought, well,
(electric guitar strumming) no one ever does
a set of three.
You know, I always felt on the 12-string
there's a hole there,
there's a missing area.
So, let's have three sets (melodic guitar)
instead of two sets.
Why not, right?
And then for the Marauder, I was like
do you think we could get pickups
with no pole pieces showing?
'Cause I've always been a fan of the solid color pickups
on Master or a Mustang.
So, Carlos asked Curtis Novax
(electric guitar playing) to design us
a special set of Jag pickups,
they're with the no pole pieces.
And I thought that was really cool.
It's cool to be able to have other makers out there
who could get something like (electric guitar playing)
that done without making a, you know,
5,000 piece mold or something.
(electric guitar playing) And then as far as
the color goes,
I'm a huge fan of Spinal Tap.
So, we had to go for (electric guitar playing)
the bass six color
(soft electric guitar playing) that Nigel Tufnel had
on his basics.
Gotta marry the unicorns with the elusive color
of that Spinal Tap guitar.
It's basically, you know,
the Genesis of it all.
(gentle electric guitar playing)
(powerful electric guitar solo playing)
- It was appropriate that you play this.
(guitarists laughing)
- I have a habit of buying "firsts."
- Oh yeah!
- This is Carlos' first 12-string
- Aww
- And it's the first 12-string string ever made for
- Yeah
(Carlos chuckles) - something like that.
And then, the Marauder I have over there,
the beautiful pink Marauder.
Same thing, and the minute your name is attached to it,
it's, it makes you even more special.
(electric guitar solo playing)
- And then this is the most beautiful thing I've seen
in a long of time,
I mean- - Yeah, I think so.
- I cannot,
I mean, I actually, I didn't really even look at it.
The minute I walked through the door,
I started, you know, playing it
and I didn't look at the details here, not any.
(electric guitar solo playing)
I've played a lot of different weird double necks
in my day.
And just, the way they both speak if they're both on,
you know, there's no feeding back or unnecessary,
you know, like when sometimes you play
down here and you've got this screaming
and it's just completely pointless
and you almost think,
"What am I doing with this thing?"
But I could totally see playing this onstage
and having both of them,
you know, make sense and
you know, quickly muting it if you have to.
But I mean this is just,
this is a real trend.
(electric guitar playing)
And it absolutely inspires.
I mean, the amount of incredible ideas
that these things have brought to the world
is just, it's immeasurable.
But you know, the fact
that you get to do that,
I mean, I'm sure in the back of your mind,
probably not every second,
but you know that the thing that you're spending
your time and your energy doing is going
to change the world.
(electric guitar playing)
So thanks!
- Yeah (guitarists chuckling)
- Now this is, this is just beautiful.
(powerful electric guitar playing)
- [Carlos] I guess my hope is just to-
I want somebody to play it.
You know what I mean?
I want somebody to create something with it.
(electric guitar playing)
Hope somebody gets this and inspired to create,
you know, the next badass album,
you know, you just like to create something
that makes a mark.
And maybe, I guess the ultimate thing is just
to be identified with.
Maybe an artist and
you know, a song.
And at the same time,
you know, it's something that I made is that
I think that's the ultimate.
(Carlos laughs)
(powerful electric guitar playing)