The guitar brand Fender has announced their first seven-string guitar, a signature Stratocaster model for the ‘Chug Norris’ of Suicide Silence, Chris Garza. This unprecedented model was custom-built for him, and his intention was to turn it into a signature Fender would then officially produce.
In speaking with Sweetwater’s official YouTube channel, Garza states:
“As much as it is for me, this guitar is for other people more than me because I want to give them access to what I didn’t have. This is for the twelve-year-old that wants to start a band or wants to write heavy stuff or do some solo stuff.”
Garza then recalls the story behind the guitar. His father took him to watch Korn live and that was the moment when he fell in love with nu metal and with seven string guitars, a love that would carry on to the present. His first guitar was a Stratocaster model, and later, despite trying out every brand out there, his dream clicked for him: a custom model seven-string Stratocaster.
The process of getting this guitar from a dream to a real thing was a long process and full of rejections, taking almost seven years from the first conversation to the finishing of the custom-built guitar. It wasn’t until Fender's master builder Carlos Lopez took on the project that the negative responses started to turn into positive ones. At Fender, Lopez is known for taking the more unconventional requests, and eventually Garza's dream guitar was no longer merely a dream.
The guitar features a 24-fret ebony fretboard with a 26.5” scale, a mahogany body and fender locking tuners. In terms of electronics it has a Bare Knuckle Aftermath humbuckers, a three way pick-up selector and one volume knob. Keeping a balance between the classic fender sound and the brutality of a seven string as soon as you turn up the gain.
You can see Chris Garza trying out the guitar and talking about its features on his YouTube podcast here:
