(guitar playing)
(Tyler laughing)
- [Tyler] Is that right? - [Speaker] Sound good to me.
- [Tyler] I mean, I could do another
if you want a safety.
- [Speaker] Okay, let's try that one more time.
(indistinct)
(rock music)
(guitar playing)
- Yo, it's Tyler Bryant hanging here
with the good folks at Fender,
checking out my brand new custom shop signature Strat.
(guitar playing)
Yeah, so I got "Pinky", the original one,
when I was 16 years old, I believe,
and carried that guitar with me all around
as I was playing shows around Texas.
And I moved to Nashville at 17 and I took "Pinky" with me,
of course, and started my band, The Shakedown,
continued to carry it around.
Ended up getting an opportunity
to go on tour with Jeff Beck.
So I took "Pinky", got to play it on stage with Jeff.
You know, it was my guitar.
We played the New York State Fair
and I met Steven Tyler and after the show he wrote,
"Pink it's like red, but not quiet"
on the back of the guitar.
(guitar playing)
I just made so many great memories with the guitar.
One that stands out was we inducted Steve Cropper
into the Songwriting Hall of Fame,
and I had to sing Midnight Hour for him.
And I was so afraid I was gonna forget the lyrics,
so I wrote 'em on top of the guitar.
And not long after this, the guitar got stolen
in Spokane, Washington and was missing
for five and a half years.
I woke up and Caleb, the drummer of The Shakedown was like,
"Dude, you left the back door of the van wide open."
And I just had that sinking feeling knowing
that the guitar was gone.
And I stayed at that hotel
for days trying to talk to everybody.
Basically became an investigator trying
to figure out where my guitar went.
And we had shows to do, so we borrowed guitars from friends
and it just wasn't the same playing my guitar.
I was so used to that one.
And plus, it had so much history
and had done so much life with me.
I was devastated.
We were rolling through Texas in 2013,
right around my birthday, and I stopped to see my family.
And my mentor, this guy named Roosevelt Twitty,
he showed me the blues when I was just a kid.
He was gonna come over.
So we unloaded our band trailer,
set up all our amps and guitars,
and my parents gifted me a Shell Pink Strat
that looked just like the one.
It felt just like it.
Same neck, same body, same pickups.
One of their friends actually threw
in a thousand bucks to get it for me as well.
So it was a lot of people
that cared about me kinda going out on a limb
to get me something that I could use,
to get me a tool that I needed.
And that was the last night I ever saw Mr. Twitty.
He played it and he was there and it was like,
all right, this is my guitar going forward.
So that was "Pinky Two".
And flash forward to 2018, we're out
on the road supporting AC/DC
and Guns N' Roses because life is crazy.
And I get a phone call from River City Guitars
in Spokane, Washington.
"Hey, you don't know us, but we have your guitar,"
the original "Pinky".
And I freaked out.
I couldn't believe it.
They read off the serial number, sent me pictures.
They had sanded off the "Pink is like red, but not quite."
They had sanded off the lyrics and all this.
But they didn't change the serial number plate
and they found it in a used car dealership in Spokane.
It came in in the trunk of a car and the guy traded it
for a thousand dollars off on a used car.
Can you believe that?
And the guitar shop just bought it and sent it to me.
They overnighted it to me.
So I had my guitar.
Then I had two of the best pink Strats in the world
and now I have four of the best pink Strats in the world.
(Tyler laughing)
(guitar playing)
So I've always had a very close working relationship
with Fender.
And I've always told the folks there
that I would play these guitars, whether they were nice
to me or not, because I love this instrument.
And when they tabled the idea
of doing a signature model guitar, I was beside myself.
And they said, "You can just send the original
to the custom shop."
And I was like, "No, I'm coming with it."
So I flew down, I grabbed my wife and we flew down
to the custom shop and it was like, you know,
going to the chocolate factory or something, walking around.
I wanted to play everything,
even though I knew exactly what we were doing.
We were there to just make the perfect pink guitar
in my opinion.
And I think we've done that.
So everyone was so cool and paid so much attention
to detail, which I really appreciate.
And yeah, it was a painless experience.
The first prototype, I got it and played it that night out
on the road and then pretty much only played it.
We then went and did a European tour
and I didn't even take the original,
I just took the first prototype because it was so close.
And I was very meticulous about comparing the pickups
and everything.
And I just did multiple recorded tests,
listening and sending them to my friends going,
"Can you tell the difference?"
And people were getting it wrong,
they were saying, "This one's the original."
And I was even getting it wrong.
So, they really knocked it out of the park
at the custom shop, man.
In my opinion, it couldn't be any better.
(guitar playing)
Out of my two pink Strats,
the custom shop model's based mainly on "Pinky Two",
which is the only two differences are the pickguard
and the bridge pickup.
But once I put this bridge pickup in the second pink guitar,
I just couldn't imagine having a guitar
that didn't have that.
The neck is the same exact shape.
The neck and middle pickups are the exact same.
Both are Alder bodies.
If you felt them, they feel identical.
But then you've got this secret weapon down
in the bridge that, for me, just allows me
to kinda cut through a mix or step up
if I'm playing with somebody that's a little louder
than me or hotter than me.
(guitar playing)
So for the pickups in this guitar,
we've got the hand-wound 1960 single coils
in the neck, in the middle.
And then in the bridge, we've got a ShawBucker,
and this is my favorite humbucker in a Strat,
probably my favorite humbucker ever.
It's just a great pickup.
And in my original one,
when I've wanted to put the humbucker in it,
I called Fender and said, "I wanna do this.
We need to route out the pickguard
and route out the guitar."
And they said, "Bring it by."
And Tim Shaw ended up putting it in.
So that was a cool experience 'cause he's a legend
and just a sonic genius wizard character.
(guitar playing)
Five-way switch, which I use all the time.
When I was young,
there was this guitarist named Alan Haynes
that I was obsessed with, still obsessed with his playing.
And I had this record called Live at the Big Easy,
and I was just wondering, how did he get those sounds?
It sounded like a wah pedal or something.
And he was using the five-way switch in a way,
probably 30 times a song or something.
So with this guitar, I'll often play like a first
or something on the neck, and then when it's time
for the course to get the lift, just flip down real quick.
So it's very useful to me.
And then the neck is my favorite shape, which is a 60 C.
I love the Rosewood boards.
And yeah, the vintage tuners, can't go wrong with those.
If I get a guitar that doesn't have the vintage tuners,
I immediately change them.
And another thing that we did, which is kind of nitpicky,
was put a slightly longer screw in the strap peg.
Because, normally, if I get a guitar, it's by the end
of the first show that that's fallen out.
And we did four springs tightened to the perfect tension
for the bridge.
This is how I set up all my Strats, and it works great.
You can still use the whammy.
It's a little more work, but it stays in tune wonderfully.
(rock music)
(guitar playing)
There's so many guitar heroes that I look up to.
Jeff Beck would be my number one.
Was always so inspired by his playing.
And then when I moved to Nashville,
I got the opportunity to go out and open up for him
and ultimately ended up getting to play on stage
with him so many times and spend a lot of time with him
and was just always inspired at how he pushed it.
He was constantly trying to outdo himself,
and raising the bar for all the rest of us.
So he would be my number one.
Of course, Jimi Hendrix, Devon Brothers.
Growing up in Texas, there was a lot of great blues players
like Alan Haynes, Anson Funderburgh,
you know, some of those guys that would throw it down
in that second position and play way back by the bridge.
Johnny Winter is a hero of mine.
Muddy Waters, Mike Campbell,
you know, so many, so many.
Keith.
Yeah, but Jeff Beck's my favorite.
He's my hero.
And I got to play "Pinky" on stage with him, man.
It's like, I wish I could send him one
of these and just say,
"Thank you for giving me a shot when I was a kid."
So over the years, we've had tons of folks come
to Shakedown shows with homemade pink Strats
that look like mine.
The one thing
that never really quite got nailed was the pickguard.
And I've been tight-lipped about who made the pickguard
because I always dreamt of this happening, you know?
But man, there've been some really good ones
where people showed up and they looked almost identical
with the relicing.
And the funny thing is, when I got my guitar,
it wasn't really relic that much.
It had a fresh coat of shell pink paint on it,
which is why I chose to leave the paint on this
so that people can actually tell their own own story
with the instrument.
(guitar playing)
(rock music)
(guitar playing)
This whole thing is kind of a head trip for me,
to be completely honest.
It's a huge honor to have a signature model
with the custom shop,
to know that I can pick up a brand new guitar.
This is a brand new guitar.
I just am feeling this for the first time today.
And it feels like what I would play every night out
on the road.
It's crazy.
I never really thought that I would have my name
on the back of a Fender guitar.
It's a huge honor for me.
Know that it's possible, man.
You can have your name on a guitar too.
It's like, what makes you different than me?
It's just you gotta get out there and do it, you know?
Here we are doing it.
(Tyler laughing)
(rock music)