In 2019, Fender launched a product that revolutionized the acoustic guitar space – the American Acoustasonic Telecaster.
At the time, Fender's then-CEO Andy Mooney said, “This is the first time in Fender history an acoustic guitar will take top billing at NAMM.” The hybrid model bridged the gap between traditional electric and acoustic offerings, successfully blending analog and digital technologies to offer not only different acoustic voicings, but also unmistakable and highly versatile electric tones.
“On the acoustic side, I was not happy with how little artist adoption that we were getting,” Mooney says of the project's inception during the new episode of Guitar Center’s Inside the Noise with Gabe Dalporto podcast. “Martin and Taylor are great, great brands, and any number of great artists have used them over the years.
“And so the brief I gave to the product team at that time was, on the one hand, extraordinarily simple but extraordinarily difficult, which is, make an acoustic guitar the way that Leo would have made it. So that took us down a path.”
As Mooney recalls, the team was encouraged to adopt Leo Fender's avant-garde way of thinking, and confront questions such as, “‘Where are the controls going to be? Is it going to be a set neck? Is it going to be a bolt-on neck?’” and, more importantly, “‘What is it that Leo would have done in today's age, that's not out there on the market?’
“Everything's electrified. It has to be, because they're [artists] on stage,” Mooney continues. “What we said is, 'What if we could give them 10 great acoustic guitars with electronics that would enable them to use pedals?' Because that's one of the issues with acoustic guitars on stage: feedback with pedals.”
Mooney divulges that it was an intensive two-and-a-half-year design project, during which the Fender team worked closely with Fishman to develop the electronics, which supercharged the Acoustasonic's hybrid tone and feel. The electric-style tones, though, came as something of a surprise.
“They [the team] took me through the acoustic voicings, and they said, ‘Listen to this.’ And then it was an electric guitar. How did that happen? It was a really happy accident,” he recalls.
“As we both know, guitar players are very reluctant to change, and we never expected the Acoustasonic to be an overnight success, but it's really gratifying now to see folks like FINNEAS or Jack White now asking for custom variations of that,” Mooney continues.
“So we're starting to see the type of artist adoption that we wanted, and we've got the line in various price points so that people can come in at more accessible price points and experience the instrument for the first time.
“So I think that's one of the big things [in terms of wins] for me, because the acoustic category is as big, if not bigger, than the electric category.”
Fender has recently announced that Mooney will be retiring after 10 years at the top, with Edward ‘Bud’ Cole, head of Fender Asia Pacific, taking the reins as the brand’s new CEO on February 16.
