Godzilla is within the constructing. And the constructing is Fender Flagship Tokyo, the US model’s temple to the guitar that opened in 2023 within the coronary heart of Harajuku, and is on observe to welcome its millionth customer early subsequent 12 months.
Over ominous, throbbing music, the lights begin flashing, the stress begins constructing, after which, lastly, Godzilla enters from stage proper. Okay, it’s clearly some poor man in a Godzilla go well with and he solely stands about two metres tall. However, hey, he’s not really the star of this present.
Media from Japan, China, the US, UK and Australia, together with over 40,000 attendees, have assembled in Tokyo for a three-day celebration dubbed Fender Expertise 2025, with new sequence launches, artist and grasp builder talks, guitar workshops and stay exhibits throughout three venues. One of many key occasions is the launch of three particular version guitars that remember final 12 months’s seventieth birthday of two popular culture icons – each the Fender Stratocaster and Godzilla had been born in 1954.
Fender
Certainly, one in all these guitars – the Fender Customized Store Restricted Version Masterbuilt Godzilla Stratocaster – is so restricted version that just one at present exists, and it prices an eye-watering 5,500,000 yen (round US$36,000). There’ll presumably be 4 extra made, relying on demand, after which that can be it.
After the launch, the 2 males answerable for this one-of-a-kind instrument sit reverse me on a sofa in a spacious workplace on the third ground of the flagship, with their child on a stand subsequent to them. They’re like chalk and cheese.
Andy Hicks is a giant, voluble, tattooed dude with lengthy straggly hair and beard. He may very well be Jason Momoa’s stunt double. He’s a Fender customized store grasp builder who lives and works in Los Angeles out of the corporate’s Corona manufacturing facility.
Tom Neely is a quiet, trim man with slicked-back silver hair, and is dressed neatly in black and wears geeky-cool glasses. He’s additionally from LA, however is an illustrator and comedian e book artist. He illustrated the New York Occasions best-seller The Final E-book On The Left, created the cult comedian e book sequence The People, and has designed art work for The Melvins and Inexperienced Day.
Barry Divola/New Atlas
They might seem like they arrive from completely different worlds, however each have one main factor in frequent – a long-standing love of Godzilla.
“He appears to have been in my life for so long as I can keep in mind,” Neely tells me. “I used to be born in 1975 and I watched him on TV as a child. The ’70s-era movies had been on TV each Saturday afternoon within the ’80s. I had the massive Shogun Godzilla toy too. Now I’ve obtained many, many extra toys and fashions. Within the ’90s I found the Hedorah period via bootleg VHS tapes. I’ve beloved each period. He’s simply some of the enjoyable issues ever created.”
“I really like that he’s modified via the a long time,” says Hicks. “He’s generally terrifying, he’s generally foolish. After I was younger I discovered the 1954 model scary. Then quick ahead to Godzilla versus Hedorah and he’s doing very foolish issues. And I like each these extremes. Now I watch the films with my youngsters.”
When Hicks was first advised that Fender and Toho, the Japanese movie firm that owns the Godzilla franchise, needed to collaborate, his eyes lit up. When he came upon he was being given carte blanche so far as the design was involved, his eyes obtained even wider. He obtained in contact with two folks he knew, one an artist and the opposite the proprietor of an artwork gallery, to ask them about potential candidates to do the art work. Each of them talked about Tom Neely.
The 2 males determined that the entrance of the guitar can be a rendering of ’90s-era Godzilla. On the again, Neely went to city, incorporating seven completely different eras of the monster from the final seven a long time.
Barry Divola / New Atlas
“I’d solely ever hand-painted one guitar earlier than,” he says. “That was in highschool when a good friend requested me to color his guitar. And I utterly ruined it. So I used to be nervous about doing this, as I didn’t wish to smash this stunning master-built guitar Andy had made.”
As for the Strat itself, Hicks took Fender at its phrase when it got here to doing no matter he needed.
“Designing this guitar was the primary time the place I felt that I may very well be designing it only for me,” he says. “I made it with nothing else in thoughts apart from considering ‘What would I need in a Godzilla guitar?’ Sometimes, if I’m designing one thing, the artist or the participant take priority as a result of it’s their dream guitar.”
One design component he did preserve on the entrance of his thoughts was this: Godzilla was the star right here. Subsequently he saved the face of the guitar easy when it got here to {hardware}.
“I made a decision to don’t have any pickguard, in fact, as Godzilla is the main target, and I went with a narrow-spaced hardtail bridge so there can be a ton of actual property on the again for the art work. We additionally determined to do a side-mount jack as an alternative of getting it on the face.”
Neely provides: “If we’d put it on the entrance, the jack would come out of right here, which wouldn’t have been a superb look.” He factors to Godzilla’s crotch, and each males snicker.
Editor’s word: Cease proper there. Fender could not have had the braveness to point out this guitar with an enter jack within the right place, however New Atlas is aware of no such concern. Behold:
Fender & Loz Blain/New Atlas
Different options embrace Gotoh vintage-style black tuners, a single Cult Chief humbucker from Sonic Pickups, and the Japanese katakana rendering of Godzilla’s identify in blue and white stone on the neck.
However the piece de resistance is a small button on the face of the guitar that, when pressed, prompts a chip on a soundboard that elicits the distinctive roar of Godzilla. And it’s the real article – Toho despatched Fender audio of the particular, official screeching roar used within the motion pictures. We would place it round circa 1984, and it is as spine-chilling as you’d count on popping out of a giant Fender amp.
With that exclusivity and value level, clearly this guitar is out of vary of most mere mortals, so Fender has additionally produced two Made In Japan Godzilla Strats, accessible in black (bought solely at Fender Flagship Tokyo and through the Fender Japan Official On-line Store) and blue (at present accessible at official Fender authorised sellers in Japan, and in Australia by the tip of the 12 months).
Barry Divola/New Atlas
Each retail for 495,000 yen (about US$3,245) and have deep gloss finishes and alder our bodies capped with myrtlewood, plus a few very cool options – Godzilla’s identify in Japanese script on the neck, and one thing referred to as a GLO (gain-linked optics) function. Primarily the second tone knob engages an onboard distortion circuit, and when it is activated, a rendering of Godzilla on the pickguard glows and pulsates, the brightness various relying on the acquire ranges.
On the launch, former Megadeth axeman (and long-time Tokyo resident) Marty Friedman straps one on and places it via its paces, cranking out some most riffage whereas lighting up Godzilla on the face of the guitar.
Fender
Western ‘gaijin’ are heading to Japan in file numbers recently – when the cherry blossoms bloomed this April, there have been 43% more American tourists in the country than in April 2024. Japanese tradition has by no means been so iconic globally.
So perhaps Fender’s onto one thing right here – take one love of guitars, stir in some Godzilla and sprinkle on just a little Japanese popular culture to style. What do you get? A real monster of a memento.
Supply: Fender
