Mike McCready’s Fender Stratocaster ’62 Reissue

Mike can be seen with this guitar in the music video for the song Hunger Strike. The song was recorded with Temple of the Dog – a tribute band to the late Andrew Wood, conceived by his friend Chris Cornell. Andrew was also the frontman of the band Mother Love Bone in which both Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were.

The ’62 Reissue Strat was used on and off by Mike until April 29, 1995, when he smashed it during a Mad Season rock supergroup concert at the Moore Theater.

Yeah, I had an import Strat that Jeff (Ament, Pearl Jam bassist) and [co-guitarist] Stone Gossard got for me. I played that on Ten and in Temple of the Dog.

[The ’57 is] in many pieces somewhere, along with the ’62 reissue I smashed to pieces during a Mad Season concert at the Moore Theater [in Seattle]. They were both really cool guitars, but when we were hitting those highs, and me being a fan of Jimi Hendrix and The Who, all of these things going through my mind and I was breaking s**t. It just happened because it always felt so good.

Mike McCready – VintageGuitar magazine

Also, according to Mike, it was the guitar that he used to record Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten.

Stone and Jeff bought me a black 1962 Japanese reissue Stratocaster. It was just so cool. I was like, ‘Oh my god…’ Because I had always wanted one. I had a Telecaster prior to that, and before that I had an Ibanez Iceman and a Kramer. But that was my first Strat

So I used that (on Ten). … I felt I wanted a Strat to complement what Stone was doing. If we both played Les Pauls, the record might’ve sounded different.

Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready looks back on 30 years of Ten

Specs

The guitar featured a 21-fret rosewood fingerboard with dot inlays attached to a maple neck. It had an alder body equipped with a vintage tremolo bridge system, vintage single-coil pick-ups – accurate for that time period, and a white pickguard.

It is likely that this guitar sparked Mike’s interest in his later acquired Stratocasters that he loves to this day.