Johnny Marr’s Metallic KO Fender Jag
Johnny Marr is one of my guitar heroes. I’m a huge fan of The Smiths and his distinctive, multi-layered ‘Guitarchestra’ approach to playing, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to recently acquire his Metallic KO red Fender Jaguar.
The guitar has a fascinating history, with appearances across several different projects in Johnny’s career. He played it on his 2013 Messenger tour, and it featured in an iconic GQ magazine photoshoot. It also appeared in the music video for New Town Velocity and in an NME feature in which Johnny demonstrated the riff for Upstarts. More recently, he played it on stage with Franz Ferdinand during a performance streamed live on Amazon Music.
One of the most intriguing chapters in the guitar’s history came in 2019, when Johnny lent it to Fontaines D.C. The acclaimed Irish band played the Jaguar during their stunning Glastonbury Festival set that year, adding another dimension to its story and connecting it to one of the defining bands of the modern post-punk scene.
The guitar has a distinctive feature of its own, too: a unique ‘NS’ engraving on the tremolo plate, representing Johnny’s son’s initials. The engraving is documented in a photograph by Pat Graham in the book Marr’s Guitars.
Visually, the Jaguar has plenty of character. It’s well worn, with dings and scratches that tell the story of a busy life on the road. It plays and sounds fantastic and I’ve already been recording with it this week. I’m looking forward to putting the Jag to work on plenty more music!
Some photos…
