As Fender celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Stratocaster, a wide-ranging generation of modern players are putting its tonal versatility through its paces like never before.
Regardless of who picks one up and what they do with it, the Strat continues to excel in every environment – and these players demonstrate why.
1. H.E.R.
Super Bowl LVIII proved high-class entertainment on and off the pitch, and H.E.R’s classy halftime show solo was right at the heart of it. The first Black female artist to be bestowed with a signature Stratocaster in 2020, her satin-smooth R&B playing has been turning heads for nearly a decade.
The Californian musician has cited watching Prince and Lenny Kravitz music videos growing up as life-affirming moments, and speaking to Guitar World in 2020, she explained how her soloing style is as inspired by vocalists as much as blues greats.
“I like to play my guitar like I’m singing, so I go for melodies that might feel a bit closer to what a singer would do, as opposed to a guitar player,” she said. “Sometimes, I like to sing and play my solos at the same time, even harmonising my voice with my guitar.”
With that comes a love for minimalism where, though she can shred her fretboard alight, feel vastly outweighs acrobatics. “Everything I do is based on the pentatonic scales,” she explained. “I grew up listening to B.B. King, Albert King and John Lee Hooker. I do like to get melodic and do a little bit of fancy stuff, but all the feeling I find is in the blues. I like making people feel something with just one note.”
Since 2020, she has enjoyed three variants of her signature Vintage Noiseless pickups-stocked Stratocaster, and she hopes it can be a tool to inspire.
“This is my expression,” she said at the time of its launch. “I think it will inspire a lot of young Black girls – and actually a lot of young girls in general – to pick up the guitar, which is something we don’t see enough of.”
2. Steve Lacey
Fellow Californian Steve Lacy is another Strat-lover rooted in the R&B aesthetic. The magic of single-coils really shines through his clean, chimy tones to the point where you can hear his pick hit the strings.
It gives his chord-focused playing a personable charm across songs where his Strat brings colourful texture so his storytelling vocals can thrive. Lacy is a terrific example of how guitarists don’t always need to be flashy to impress.
3. Angel Olson
Angel Olson takes a similar approach in using raw guitars as storytelling vehicles. The singer-songwriter’s music is filled with energy and angst, her tones typically sandpaper-smooth for that ‘amp that’s fallen off a back of a truck’ vibe where it’s not so much about riffs as it is the atmosphere they create.
Her playing can feel vulnerable on songs such as Unfucktheworld, or furious and frenzied, like the chorus pedal-laced alt-rock crescendo of Shut Up Kiss Me, but it always feels resolutely her.
4. Simon Neil
Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil is arguably the most famous modern-day Strat super-fan. Across nine studio albums, the Scottish trio’s sound has been hugely transformative.
Journeying from stripped back garage alt-rock to the world-conquering riffs of Only Revolutions, with their modern sound a blend of the two, a Squier Strat has always been by his side. Even at their most polished, the kind of grittiness only budget gear can deliver reigns supreme, proving money isn’t everything.
Whether churning out barely overdriven single note riffs – see Bubbles and Weird Leisure – or battering ears with drop-tuned powerchords – The Captain, Wolves Of Winter – Neil’s playing remains a scintillating hybrid of clever catchiness and feral mania that would sound second rate on any other guitar.
5. Mdou Moctar
That same wildness wriggles beneath the fingers of Nigerien guitarist Mdou Moctar, who transforms his instrument into a symbol of protest.
With his new album, Funeral For Justice, he says “nothing is toned down” and that his psychedelic rock has never sounded “louder, faster and wilder”.
Its title track is conclusive evidence of that, where his biting single coils bare their teeth like starving wolves.
6. Shubh Saran
The Stratocaster has often been at the epicentre of invention and intriguing stylistic cocktails. Shubh Saran is one such player continuing that trend. Born in India, Saran grew up in four continents and six countries as his parents moved around for work.
While this blurred his cultural lines, he grounded his musical foundation in the singular chord-shape songwriting of punk, whilst an Indian approach to melodies coloured his licks. Gamakas – the way Indian musicians dance between notes in a scale – are a key part of his musical palette, which has gotten more progressive over time.
Today, Allan Holdsworth and Derek Trucks are major influences for the John Mayer-Strat playing Saran as he manoeuvres, amongst other projects, through his prog jazz solo work and the electronic jazz/EDM of Sungazer.
That’s led to him jamming on stage with Plini and subsequently blowing the Aussie’s mind. “I love that guy,” Plini told Guitar World last year. “He’d come on stage and play the weirdest shit from other realms of playing that I would never think of. We’d look at him like, ‘What the fuck is happening?’”
7. Flo Blue, Parquet Courts and a new generation of indie and post-punk idols
To those ends, Andrew Savage and Austin Brown of New York indie outfit Parquet Courts bring their own spin on alternative rock. Sharp, Talking Heads-esque clean tones and a Kinks-go-punk swagger are their calling cards.
Their no-nonsense songwriting oozes a sense of care-free nostalgia, which is a world away from London-based multi-instrumentalist Flo Blue’s music.
Amalgamating velvety jazz and folky turns with pop sensibilities, her songs are full of colour and interesting rhythmic choices without ever losing sight of an addictive hook.
Perhaps it’s the textural versatility of Stratocasters which makes them so valuable. Taking things down an indie folk route, Buck Meek’s writing in Big Thief and his sparsely furnished solo work always ushers a warming tonality from his Strat.
Be it on the country-twanged Cannonball! or Big Thief’s Vampire Empire, his playing always feels like an embrace from a long-lost friend.
Despite nestling in a post-punk pool, Carlos O’Connell and Conor Curley of Ireland’s Fontaines D.C. ooze a similarly warm moodiness from their Stratocasters, employing 1961 American Vintage II and Rory Gallagher tribute models among a slew of Jaguars, Teles, and Jazzmasters.
Yet, despite that warmth, there’s a chill icing their tones at times, as the haunting refrain of Roman Holiday attests.
8. Mark Bowen
That’s a chill that Bristol’s Idles crank to the max and lacquer with bare-knuckle-boxer ruggedness. Speaking to Guitarist earlier this year, Mark Bowen explained how is time-worn ’72 Strat originally belonged to his father, and it’s one he calls “unique and weird”.
He’s gotten rid of its tone knobs as he simply doesn’t use them, its finish is beyond knackered after being covered in tape over the years, its varnish strummed clean off. But what it lacks in pageant-ready perfection it more than makes up for in charisma.
He’s also installed a high-output Creamery pickup in the bridge to accentuate the twang from his D and G strings, which makes for a wonderful contrast to his blue baritone Strat.
“The best thing about baritones is that they’re twangy and meaty at the same time,” he enthuses. Its guttural character, which he pairs with a Vox AC30 amp, is all over new album, TANGK.
9. Cory Hanson
Cory Wong is one of the modern-day poster boys for the Strat thanks to his relentless right-hand technique. Cory Hanson is another leading exponent.
Whether he’s unfurling gritty psych textures in Wand, toning things down with Ty Segall or stomping through garage rock hits with former outfit Together Pangea, he’s usually bringing his Olympic White 1972 Fender Stratocaster along for the ride.
His ever-growing CV shows him as something of a musical chameleon, but whichever way he points his guitar playing, his Strat has always proved a reliable weapon.
10. Larkin Poe’s Rebecca Lovell and Tyler Bryant
For Larkin Poe’s Rebecca Lovell and her husband Tyler Bryant, Strats are a part of the family. Bryant professes a love for ’50s builds, with an American Original and a ’59 in his arsenal, and oozes suave, rolling blues rock licks from his fingertips.
Lovell’s go-to, meanwhile, is a ’60s-style Custom Shop model. A Seymour Duncan humbucker in the bridge fattens her stylish bluesy playing, which works as a striking counterpoint to sister Megan’s lap steel.
11. Robin Ognedal
Speaking of counterpoints, Leprous’ Robin Ognedal’s Strat collection has helped create a potent dichotomy with co-guitarist Tor Oddmund Suhrke’s six- and eight-string Aristides.
While Suhrke’s tone is all about balls, Ognedal’s thinner, more cutting lines typify the modern metal and prog rock blend the Norwegians have learnt to master over their 23-year career.
His love of maple fretboards and glassy tones creates a playing style more in line with John Mayer than John Petrucci, as the band sits in a pocket that is both vintage and modern.
12. Snakedersch
It’s a feat that defines the work of Boston’s Snakedersch, too. When he’s not playing an Abasi Concepts guitar, channelling its creator’s innovative jazz-prog playing style, he’s utilising the brightness of Strats to great effect.
His latest EP, Edges, is rich with ethereal textures and shining leads in a manner not too dissimilar to the fusion-coloured licks of Owane. He’s also finding that Strats are right at home in the modern instrumental prog world whilst leaning heavily into the world’s sunnier landscapes.
13. Joshua De La Victoria
Another bright spark in that talent-littered world is Joshua De La Victoria, whose namesake project Victoria sees him joining forces with Animals As Leader drummer Matt Garstka.
Their music ranges from laid-back lucidity to thumping, off-kilter passages. Light and accessible but deceptively complex jazz, churned out through a reliced white Stratocaster, sits at its core.
Eras may come and go, but whatever’s in vogue in the musical world, you can trust that the iconic purrs and growls of a Fender Stratocaster will be heard within it.
