This Is What Metal Sounds Like on a Standard Telecaster

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(Image credit: Orange Grove Media/Flickr Creative Commons)

“Can you play metal on a Telecaster?”

So goes the old question.

Glenn Fricker of the SpectreSoundStudio YouTube channel took the matter up for this video.

“This guitar is known for being played by blues, jazz and rock guitar players,” he notes, pointing out that its users have included Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

“So we know that this guitar is great for blues, rock and jazz,” “but does the bright twangy sound lend itself to metal?”

To demonstrate, he brings in Christian Vegh to play some metal on a Standard Telecaster as well as on a Jim Root Signature Telecaster loaded with EMG humbuckers for comparison. The guitars are tuned to drop A and played through a Revv Generator 120 MKII.

“One of the fiercest-sounding guitars I’ve ever had come in was a Tele loaded with the Seymour Duncan Hot Rail,” Fricker says. “I tried to track that guitar down, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to locate it.”

Check out the video below, and visit Glenn’s SpectreSoundStudios channel on YouTube for more of his videos.

Christopher Scapelliti
Christopher Scapelliti

Christopher Scapelliti is editor-in-chief of Guitar Player magazine, the world’s longest-running guitar magazine, founded in 1967. In his extensive career, he has authored in-depth interviews with such guitarists as Pete Townshend, Slash, Billy Corgan, Jack White, Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren, and audio professionals including Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott. He is the co-author of Guitar Aficionado: The Collections: The Most Famous, Rare, and Valuable Guitars in the World, a founding editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine, and a former editor with Guitar World, Guitar for the Practicing Musician and Maximum Guitar. Apart from guitars, he maintains a collection of more than 30 vintage analog synthesizers.