Official Fender seven-string electric guitars may become a reality in the not-too-distant future, after the firm’s first-ever seven-string Stratocaster recently broke cover.
On the latest episode of his eponymous podcast, Chris Garza of deathcore metal outfit Suicide Silence took the opportunity to show off his latest custom build – a history-making seven-string hardtail Strat that has been seven years in the making.
After recently receiving his long-awaited Custom Shop creation, Garza wasted no time in playing it live almost immediately. Now he’s given Fender fans a closer look at the extended scale Strat in a detailed post.
“Shout out to Javier Cuba [Fender Custom Shop manager], he really put in a lot of time [on this],” Garza says. “A lot of people at Fender, I’ve known for many years. From the conversation to the first one, to this – getting it in my hand – it took almost seven years. Definitely well worth the wait.”
As Garza explains, the guitar features a mahogany body, maple neck and ebony fingerboard, as well as 24 jumbo frets, a 26.5” scale length, and Bare Knuckle Aftermath humbuckers. It also flaunts a sole volume knob, some unique body contouring, and a string-through-body hardtail bridge.
And, perhaps most notably of all, it features seven strings. That is an exceptionally rare feature to see on a seven-string Strat, and has only ever been experimented with on a few select Squier models over the years.
Examples include the near-impossible-to-find Squier Stratocaster VII from 2000 – which arrived in both hardtail and tremolo configurations – and the more aggressive Squier Stagemaster 7, which came with a Floyd Rose-style trem. Needless to say, neither model was particularly successful, and were swiftly discontinued.
Never, though, has Squier’s parent company released an official, Fender-badged seven-string. Now, it's happened, and we might be one step closer to finally seeing production run seven-string models thanks to Garza’s long-term project.
“This is the first ever official Fender – not Squier – seven-string hardtail. The first one ever in history is actually this guitar. It’s a real thing. Honestly, it still doesn’t seem real.
“There’s a bigger vision with this guitar. I do want this to be a signature model at some point. We’ll see what happens.”
With Fender continuing to close the gap between its hero and speciality brands – such as Charvel and EVH, as evidenced by the American Ultra II line – it's not completely beyond the realms of possibility that a dedicated seven-string range could be introduced at some point in the future. There certainly seems to be enough interest to justify such a move, too...
