Fender Mustang: The Guitar You’ve Been Missing?

Have you ever owned a Fender Mustang? It seems to me that guitarists are either fully paid-up Mustang evangelists, or they don’t care about them at all. The Mustang is definitely one of Fender’s most unusual guitars, and one that’s quite loaded with cultural preconceptions. Today, I’m going to briefly investigate that with you, and maybe consider if we should be looking to add one to our guitar collection.

If you’re a Mustang aficionado, then this blog will doubtless support your feelings about the guitar. If you don’t particularly love them, then I might see if I can persuade you to view them in another light. Why, though? Why do I care if you are into Mustangs or not?

It’s a good question! Why indeed? Well, I don’t have any vested interest in getting you to buy a Mustang over any other guitar. What I have noticed on my travels, though, is that most people who don’t care for Mustangs have also never played one for any meaningful amount of time. That initially struck me as odd: to have an opinion on a guitar we’ve had no proper experience with. 

Then I took that thought a little further and considered a different Fender guitar that I recently acquired, which on paper has almost completely the wrong sort of specifications for me. The v-neck, the curved fingerboard, the lacquer, the low-output pickups…the whole thing seemed an ill fit for me, a player who gets on best with more ‘Gibson-spec’d’ guitars, generally speaking.

And yet I absolutely love playing it! I can’t put it down, and it made me realise that I’d been missing out on some great fun simply by having preconceived ideas about whether that guitar was sufficiently ‘me’. I think we all do that, to some degree, and this new Fender has taught me the lesson that it’s a good, healthy thing for us guitarists to get away from our iron-clad preferences once in a while. They just end up becoming comfort zones, and when were those ever any use for guitar playing?

So, it is with that frame of mind that I approach the Fender Mustang with you today. You and I are on an adventure, and neither of us are in our comfort zones. 

Isn’t it thrilling?

Today’s blog is no history lesson, but in brief, the Mustang was created in 1964 as a ‘student guitar’. Initial models had a stripped back set of electronics and a newly designed tremolo, all on a body that was smaller than normal. In fact, two previous student Fenders - the Musicmaster and the Duo-Sonic - already existed, and they were actually rebranded with the same offset body shape as the Mustang later on. 

The necks on all three downsized models were offered in two sizes for a while: 21 frets with a 22.5” scale, and 22 frets with a 24”. Even that larger neck was a full inch and a half less than a Strat or Telecaster, which did (and does) make a pronounced difference to how the guitar handles.

The thinking behind this was that beginners and students (‘kids’ was the implication) would have an easier time playing a guitar that was smaller. Whilst no doubt true, this didn’t stop plenty of guitarists remaining with their Mustangs long after their beginner stages were over.

The smaller 21 fret models were less popular and didn’t last, so nowadays we tend to just think of the Mustang as a 24” guitar.

The tremolo is worth talking about. Now, some modern reissues have declined to include this, often opting for a fixed bridge. This is a shame, since the Mustang whammy bar is one of the craziest and most expressive devices found on any guitar. I’ll return to this later in the article, but in short, the Fender Dynamic Vibrato - to give it its proper name - is a floating system that uses a ‘cigar’ bar to secure the string ends. This bar pivots when the tremolo arm is depressed, allowing both up and down bends in pitch. It’s the sensitivity and dramatic pitch lowering - lower than a Strat and far lower than fellow offsets the Jag and Jazzmaster - that make the Mustang’s tremolo so appealing.

And there’s one other thing, too: the bridge itself…

The Mustang bridge has earned itself a bit of a life beyond the guitar itself. As part of the Dynamic Vibrato, it does its job very well, and this is largely thanks to the saddles having only one string space for each string to sit inside. Compare this with Jazzmaster and Jaguar bridges, which have multiple slots machined into them. The idea there was to offer minute string space differences for those who wanted to experiment, but in reality, they just made the strings pop out and rattle about. A major interference when you’re playing, as many offset fans will know!

A popular modification for decades now has been for offset players to buy Mustang bridges to replace the original bridges. They largely drop in, and instantly make the guitar more stable and player-friendly.

The 80s saw a great many guitarists ditching their sunburst Fenders and heading for neon Superstrats with Floyd Rose tremolos. Offset guitars like the Mustang, the Jaguar and the Jazzmaster were seen as stale, old-hat guitars from an older generation. Consigned to the pawn shops of the world, these guitars were readily available and as cheap as chips, which made them de facto purchases for broke alternative rockers such as Sonic Youth, Nirvana and other iconoclastic artists. The idiosyncrasies built into these oddball guitars became the very reason for owning them, and a whole counterculture formed around choosing these over the Jacksons and Kramers of the day.

Grunge and 90s alternative rock made this even more apparent, when these former ugly duckling guitars were seen through fresh eyes as an antidote to the posturing, flippant hard rock and hair metal of the 80s. Fender offsets were back, and they’ve never really left since.

Today, the Mustang lives in an unusual place within the Fender family. It’s definitely seen as a niche guitar; an underrated cult favourite for anyone looking to swerve the more obvious guitar shapes. It’s a sign of counterculture cool, perhaps even more so than the Jaguar and Jazzmaster, purely due to them being a little less popular sales-wise.

Fender offer various Mustang models today, but nothing like the number of Strats, Teles and other offsets in the catalogue. You can buy a new Mustang, but you need to hunt for one that’s historically accurate to any degree, since most of the current ones have mods and adjustments.

And yet…

The Mustang was continuously on sale from 1964 until 1982 without a break in manufacturing. This cannot be said about the Jazzmaster! Not only that, it has also been available since 1990 in some form or other. So, in those terms, it's one of Fender’s most enduringly popular guitars. 

And you know what else?

A Fender Mustang from 1969 is the most expensive electric guitar ever sold, too. I’m sure you already know this, but above any David Gilmour or Eric Clapton Stratocasters, the highest amount of money ever paid for an electric guitar was for Kurt Cobain’s left-handed 1969 Mustang in Competition Blue. I’ll repeat that: a lefty version of a short scale student guitar sold for four and a half million dollars, more than any other electric guitar in history. Let that one sink in! The only guitar to have sold more was Cobain’s ‘MTV Unplugged’ Martin D18E, so Kurt holds the two top spots for guitar sales.

Despite being seen as niche instruments for art rockers, you may be surprised to learn about some very notable players who’ve brandished Fender Mustangs throughout their careers. I’ll outline just a few here, to serve as a taster menu for anyone who’s curious…

Kurt Cobain from Nirvana

I’ve mentioned Kurt already, but he is the obvious Mustang poster boy. Cobain’s influence over the world of guitars is just enormous. It was at the time, and it has remained in the decades since his death. I can say with relative certainty that everybody in at least the western world who picks up a guitar has tried to strum Smells Like Teen Spirit at one point or another. His accessible style and irreverent attitude have made Nirvana’s music not only timeless but a real portal for fledging players to fly through, generation after generation.

Todd Rundgren on Bat Out of Hell

Todd’s a classic 70s guitar hero for sure, but there’s more to him besides. A top producer, Todd worked with Meatloaf on his astonishing Bat Out of Hell record. I spoke to Todd a number of years ago (click for my Todd Rundgren interview), and loved the story he shared with me about the recording. Those motorbike revving noises at the beginning of the title track? Todd’s Fender Mustang, with judicious use of that Dynamic Vibrato! He depressed the whammy bar until the strings went completely slack, and then brought it up to simulate the engine revs. Very creative, and very cool!

Adrian Belew of King Crimson

Whether you know him from King Crimson, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Talking Heads, his solo work or the current BEAT band, there’s no denying what a creative powerhouse Adrian Belew is. As famous for making animal noises from his guitar as for being an artful, inventive player, Adrian is weirdly underrated on the typical guitar player’s radar.

Known for his Parker Fly and battered Strat (beaten up by Seymour Duncan himself, no less), Adrian is also very partial to a Mustang or two. Check out recordings and footage from the King Crimson Discipline era and you’ll see a good few Mustangs, hand-painted by Belew. He’s another player who quickly saw the potential in the Dynamic Vibrato, and put it to good use!

Blixa Bargeld of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

He’s not a member any more, but for lots of Nick Cave fans, Blixa Bargeld remains the Bad Seeds’ ultimate guitarist. The erstwhile frontman of Einsturzende Neubauten, Bargeld is a particularly iconoclastic guitarist. He seems truly motivated to improve the song above any other consideration, and that often leads to him adopting a very subtle approach, and indeed often not playing at all. Blixa loves a Fender offset, and plays many vintage Mustangs, often tuned to open chords and played with a slide.

Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth are an obvious touchstone when referencing arty alternative rock. It’s not as if they are the blueprint, either, since most bands don’t sound like them. It’s more a matter of their attitude, of them having reached out into the arty abyss first, reclaiming offsets from the pawn shop back cupboards and reminding the world how expressive feedback and atonality could be.

Anti-guitarists? I’d say not so: they clearly love guitars and are very deliberate in their investigations. It’s just that the end results aren’t based on flashy techniques, but on shrieking, living noise. They are a thrilling trio to hear when the elements collide. All three have been seen with Mustangs over the years, frequently with modified electronics and always in original tunings.

If you typically play something Strat-shaped or Les Paul-shaped, then I’m going to say this: the Mustang is the antidote to your guitar blues. When you inevitably get stuck in a playing rut, and grow bored of your hands going through the same old motions all the time, then I highly suggest grabbing a Mustang and have it be your go-to for a while.

I recommend this, because everything will be familiar yet slightly different. It’s not like playing an 8-string guitar or a banjo, where you have to start learning again (though there ain’t nothing wrong with that): it’s a situation where doing the same old thing will suddenly feel fresh. This newness will naturally move you away from your usual moves and routines. I believe this is a very creative and satisfying way to free up your energy, and after a couple of weeks, your Strat or Les Paul will have acquired its own freshness again.

There are sounds and textures that only the Mustang can give you. Why not see if one suits your music? Maybe it’s the guitar you’ve been missing?

Click to View our Selection of Mustang Guitars