REVIEW: Fender Johnny Marr Signature Special Jaguar

Fender offsets are the ultimate indie guitar. They coax players towards textural, chordal playing, angular melodies, ringing open strings, and often a lot of extra noises, clatters and clangs thanks to that entertainingly unique tremolo system. It seems weird in retrospect that indie guitar icon Johnny Marr wasn’t a Fender Jaguar player until picking one up in Modest Mouse in the 2000s. Now it almost feels strange to see him without a Jaguar. 

Marr’s latest signature model takes the majority of its cues from his existing model, which is among my favourite Fender guitars. The biggest difference, and it’s a huge one, is the addition of a trio of lipstick pickups in place of the Jaguar’s regular two single coils. But let’s back up a bit and break it down. 

We’ll start with the overall features. We’ve got an alder body with a gorgeously deep custom gloss nitrocellulose black laquer finish and a 22-fret maple neck with rosewood fingerboard. The fingerboard radius is 9.5”, a slightly flatter board than you would expect on a Jaguar (where 7.25” is more common). The back of the neck is carved to Marr’s specific preferences, inspired by the neck on his ’65 Jaguar. The 24” Jaguar scale is present and correct, and while the vintage tremolo initially looks pretty standard, there are a number of tweaks to the spec. The vibrato itself is a classic vintage-style floating Jaguar unit but it employs a nylon sleeve insert and a taller tremolo arm, while the bridge uses a Jaguar base with Mustang saddles and speclialised nylon post inserts (and the radius differs from the standard Marr model in order to match the flatter neck of this version). There’s also a removable bridge cover in the same style as the ashtray covers found on Strats, Teles, Jazz Basses etc. Cool touch. 

But what makes this particular Marr model stand out is its electronics setup. First up and most obviously we have those three lipstick pickups. They’re made by Kent Armstrong to Marr’s specs, and represent his continued search for tone and versatility. In addition to the typical master volume and master tone controls, there’s a four-way pickup selector switch to give you bridge, bridge+neck in parallel, neck, and bridge+neck in series modes. 

An extra three-way switch on the top control plate flips between the wiring of the original Marr Jaguar model (complete with muted middle pickup in keeping with said original model’s two-pickup layout); a version of the same but with the middle pickup added to every setting; and a middle-only option that bypasses the four-way switch. There’s also a brightness switch which really takes the low end out of the signal if you need it. Then there’s a secondary brightness switch which only operates on the neck+bridge series mode. Fender and Marr have figured out how to get a huge amount of variety out of this circuit. To me it doesn’t feel too complicated but I’m sure there are players who think there’s too much going on here. 

Sonically, this guitar is supremely versatile. The in-between settings afforded by the middle pickup create a texture that we’re just not hearing from a Jaguar: clearer, snappier, slightly hollow, definitely gritty. Then flip back to the two-pickup mode and you’re locked in to a new take on the classic Jag vibe, edgier and twangier but no less bold and powerful. The tone is almost a little Telecaster-like looser, darker within the middle frequencies, but you can zap that darkess straight to heck with the brightness switch. 

The sheer clarity of this guitar makes it a great choice for players who use loads of pedals: it maintains its character no matter what you’re piling on top of it. And it’s definitely geared towards clean and edge-of-dirt sounds, but I found a few settings that wanted nothing more than to absolutely roar through a fuzz pedal. 

Is this the ultimate Jag? Can it be the ultimate Jag in a world where the regular Marr model exists? I dunno but it’s certainly the most fun Jaguar I’ve played in years and undeniably the most versatile one ever. My only suggestion would be, hey guys, how about a version with a lipstick humbucker in the bridge position? Aww c’mon, it’d be cool. 

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