Johnny Marr’s 1965 Fender Jaguar

Marr acquired this 1963 Fender Jaguar from Isaac Brock. As the story goes, when Johnny decided to join Modest Mouse in 2006, he went out to meet Isaac, and at one of their early rehearsals together, Marr picked up this Jaguar from Isaac’s rig and played a riff he’d prepared. That riff ended up becoming the song “Dashboard.”

I went over to Portland to play with Modest Mouse. The very first night I got there Isaac was playing through these huge Fender Super 6 amps which are really loud. I had a Telecaster, and I thought my guitar was never going to compete [with that]

So I went through a bunch of his guitars, and he had this Jag that I never really bothered with a Jag before. […] I picked up a Jag. which was a ’63, and I just went… [plays a main riff of “Dashbord”]. The guitar made me do that,

In Conversation with Johnny Marr | The Great Escape Festival 2018 | Fender

After that first rehearsal, Marr asked Isaac if he’d be willing to sell the guitar, and Isaac agreed. At the time, though, the guitar was in rough shape—it had been sitting unused and dust-covered at Isaac’s place, with one of the pickups not working at all.

Marr had the guitar fixed up, and it quickly became his main instrument, one he would use extensively with Modest Mouse.

Interestingly, while Marr initially referred to this guitar as a ’63 Jaguar in earlier interviews, finding it a funny coincidence as it matched his birth year, his recent book actually lists it as a 1965 Fender Jaguar.

Stickers

Marr decorated this guitar one night while working on the Modest Mouse album. In 2007, he sat down with Fender and explained the meaning behind each decoration, summarized here:

The “8” represents Scorpio, Marr’s astrological sign and birth month in October. The “S” sticker is in honor of his daughter, Sonny Marr, while the “N” stands for his son, Nile, and the “A” represents his wife, Angie, who has been by his side since before he was famous.

The remaining stickers—maple leaves in various colors—were a spontaneous addition that he picked up at a local Walmart at 3 a.m.

Inspiration for the Signature Jaguar

Marr’s use of this guitar eventually led him to develop his own signature model with Fender. In his autobiography book, he explained that after playing this Jaguar with Modest Mouse, he couldn’t imagine playing anything else—he had found a guitar that perfectly suited his needs. Playing this guitar on the album sparked the idea to create his own custom Jaguar.

One very big idea I had during the making of the record was to build my own Jaguar guitar. I’d become so accustomed to playing the black one, which I’d bought from Isaac, that I couldn’t imagine playing anything else.

I’d been very fortunate to be able to acquire a large collection of guitars that I would employ to do very specific things over the years, and now with Modest Mouse, I had found a guitar that not only suited me perfectly but did the job of several guitars, and which was also taking me into new territory, in much the same way as the Rickenbacker had done in The Smiths. I became obsessed with Jaguars and also Jazzmasters, and I used them exclusively on the album.

Johnny Marr – Set the Boy Free