Joe Strummer’s Guitars and Gear

The guitar was originally sunburst, but in 1976 when the Clash was formed, influenced by Sex Pixtols, Joe wanted his guitar to look more authentic. He took it to the auto body shop, where the guitar’s body and pickguard were refinished in grey auto primer and then painted with black automobile paint.

Joe’s Tele is filled with stickers and various slogans which changed over time. At the first stage the word “NOISE” was painted just over the pickguard and two stickers were added. One seen on the pictures above saying “Ignore Alien Orders”, and other was probably a Rastafarian flag at the bottom of the pickguard. About that same time there was also a small sticker just bellow the guitar controls, that wrote “War” but it was scraped off and disappeared with time.
Later on, the “Trash City” sticker was added just behind the bridge, which was also changed to the one that has individual saddles for each string. Original Kluson tuners were replaced with Fender “F” style tuners and a large question mark was painted on the body’s back.

Since Joe’s death the guitar made appearance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum after which it was returned to Joe’s family.

The least we can say is that all of his guitars had stickers all over them. It’s hard to tell if these are Telecasters or Esquires with double pickups.
He had a white blonde with a “Slab” neck made sometime between 1958 and 1962, one other guitar had the mirror/aluminium pickguard, and was probably one of the earlier models from the early ’50s. He also used a black one which was most likely Joe’s only maple neck Tele/Esquire.

There are also picture of Joe with the Gretsch White Falcon double cutaway, so this is not the only Gretsch Joe used to play.