To see Keith Urban live is to see an icon wholly unafraid of brandishing any guitar he wishes to play. Lately, he’s been bonding with a well-worn ’64 Strat, and he’s also had ongoing discussions with PRS about creating a versatile signature model that can do it all.
But the guitar at the heart of Urban’s career is — and has been — Clarence, a beloved 1989 Fender 40th Anniversary Telecaster. Urban will be the first to tell you that the guitar is far from perfect. Years of road wear have done it no favors.
But he loves it so much that the neck profile is the inspiration for his yet-to-be-finished PRS.
Article continues below“It’s a whole conversation about where physics clash with correctness,” Urban says. “We all know for a fact that there’s no soul in perfection.”
Which is why Urban continues to lean on Clarence, despite its inherent dysfunction. But he admits that, due to mileage, its future is as a wall-hanger, which is why his collaboration with PRS will be something to watch.
“It’s just like when they come out with new guitar processing gear. You still find yourself going back, and people ask, ‘Why are you playing that? They improved it.’ And you go, ‘Yeah. That’s where they fucked up,’” he says with a laugh.
“Sometimes, the shittier elements are what give things their mojo.”
Where and when did you find Clarence?
I was on my first trip to America. I went to Nashville, but I really wanted to go to New York and have a look around at Manny’s Music because it was world-famous, and I had my eye on getting a really great Telecaster.
The very first guitar I ever owned was an Ibanez Telecaster copy. I got it when I was nine, so the Telecaster shape was something really familiar to me. When I was about 15, I bought a Strat because I was obsessed with Mark Knopfler. But as I got into my late teens and early 20s, I got really big into chicken-pickin’, and I really wanted a Telecaster.
Is Manny’s where you found Clarence?
Yes. So, we got to New York. I went to Manny’s, walked in, saw this guitar, and asked the guy if I could play it. He pulled it out of this glass case, like it was the Mona Lisa. I played it and just immediately loved the feel, the tone, the speed, and the fluidity.
I mean, compared to guitars I’ve played previously, it was just amazing. But I didn’t have anywhere near enough money to buy it, so I borrowed some money, bought it, and took it back to Australia. And because it was gorgeous-looking, with the gold hardware, tobacco sunburst finish, and the bird’s-eye maple neck that was just exquisite, I didn’t want to take it on the road.
I made my very first solo album, Keith Urban, in Australia, and if anybody can find a copy of that, you’ll see the guitar is on the cover. I had only just gotten that guitar, so I was very excited to be featured with it on the cover of the album. I played it on every single song of that album.
Since Clarence was your only guitar, and you didn’t want to tour with it, what did you use on the road?
I bought a really shitty black Squier Strat, and that was my road guitar. I kept the Telecaster in its beautiful, immaculate tweed case under my bed, and when I’d come home off the road, I would pull it out from under the bed, sit on the floor, and play it.
Somewhere in the next couple of days it fell off the stand and it got a chip somewhere on the body. That’s when I said, “Okay, the gloves are off. It’s a road guitar.’”
I’d go, “Oh man, this guitar is so much easier to play than my piece of shit Squier. I wish I could take this on the road. Oh, well.” Then I’d put it back in the case and under the bed. [laughs]
And then, one day, I was like, “What a dickhead I am! Like, just play the damn thing, man!”
So I took it to a gig that night, and somewhere in the next couple of days it fell off the stand and it got a chip somewhere on the body. That’s when I said, “Okay, the gloves are off. It’s a road guitar.”
And that was it. [laughs] It became my number-one guitar for decades to come. Since then, Clarence has been on various album covers and certainly countless videos, things like “Somebody Like You” and “Who Wouldn’t Want to Be Me” — you know, pretty much all of those hits of mine through the 2000s and 2010s.
For somebody wanting to hear the sound of Clarence, what are a few notable studio moments that you’d call out?
Well, obviously, I’ve played a lot of Telecasters since then and have realized it’s an okay guitar. [laughs] I mean, I’ve definitely got Teles that are way better sounding than sweet little Clarence is, but on that first solo album, there’s an instrumental, “Clutterbilly,” which we recorded for my first album and then rerecorded for The Ranch in ’97. That’s Clarence through and through on both of those.
And if you can actually find the video for “Clutterbilly” on YouTube, you’ll see Clarence in full bloom. And that’s a good example of why I love that guitar; it’s just the speed, articulation, and consistency across all the strings.
There’s something to be said about a guitar you know very well, too.
I love John’s mind. He said to me, ‘When you hear a solo that you love, in a lot of cases what you’re hearing is how well that player knows the guitar.‘”
— Keith Urban
It doesn’t really die anywhere along the neck, up and down. And you know, a couple of years ago, I was talking with John Mayer about guitar tone and guitars and various things. He said to me — and I love John’s mind because he has a really unique view of things — but he said to me, “When we talk about gear, no one ever talks enough about how well the player knows the guitar”
He said, “I think more than anything, when you hear a solo that you love, in a lot of cases what you’re hearing is how well that player knows the guitar. That’s really what you’re hearing and feeling.”
And I thought, “Man, you’re so right, John.” And in some ways, I feel like I played better when I had one guitar versus six or more.
And so, I’ve sort of made it my mission to try and get back to playing one a bit more dominantly throughout the night. But you know, Clarence is just a guitar that I’ve bonded with because I didn’t have any other guitars, and he covered so much of what I needed at that time.
With that being said, when you strap on Clarence and close your eyes, what do you feel that’s singular to that guitar?
Maybe it’s familiarity, even with its slightly dysfunctional way of being. [laughs] Because when I’d pick it up, it was like butter. It was just effortless. I know every single inch and millimeter of that guitar and how to make it do pretty much anything I’m trying to express.
But when I started playing other guitars — like a Nocaster that I love, and obviously a lot of other guitars, like the ’64 Strat that I started to bond with — they’re all very different in their neck shape, radius, and all that sort of stuff.
When I hadn’t played Clarence for a long time, I went back to him, and there was a part of me that kind of went, “Oh, this is a different guy. This isn’t as easy as this other guitar I just played.” But then that familiarity with the dysfunctionality came back so quickly, and it was just an old friend again.
What sort of modifications have you made to Clarence over the years?
One of the questions I’ve been asked is more about the hole in the pickguard, since there’s a hole in the middle position. And that happened because I was taking Clarence everywhere, and so many times I wished I had a Strat, too. I did have my Squier Strat, but in some situations, I could only take one guitar, and I just wanted to take Clarence.
I said, ‘I don’t wanna mess with this original pickguard.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, you can find those pickguards all day long.’ I went, ‘Are you sure?’”
— Keith Urban
I saw a video online with Brent Mason, where he’d pop the middle pickup in there, and I went, “Oh, fantastic. That’s what I’ll do.” And because I don’t know shit about electronics and how to put pickups in, I said to the guitar tech, “I wanna put this middle pickup in and a five-way position switch, blah blah blah…”
But I said, “I don’t wanna mess with this original pickguard. Can I just find another pickguard?” And he goes, “Oh, you can just cut into that one. You can find those pickguards all day long.” I went, “Are you sure?” And he went, “Oh yeah, they’re everywhere.” I said, “Okay,” and we hacked into the middle position.
So the guitar tech came back with the guitar, and I messed with various combinations for a while, but it just always sounded like a Tele trying to be a Strat. I just couldn’t get it to ever sound like what I wanted.
Eventually, I took the pickup out and told the tech, “Let’s get a replacement pickguard now to put back in ’cause I’m not gonna go with the middle pickup anymore.” But we couldn’t find one! [laughs] Turns out, when you look really closely at that 40th Anniversary Tele pickguard, it’s got a very fine tiger stripe pattern through it to give it that sort of cigarette-stained ivory color. It’s actually achieved through this very fine striping.
I couldn’t find another one. I was so pissed off, and it seemed like every pickguard I put in just looked awful. And so, I went, “I’ll just go with this one with the hole in the middle because the hole in the middle looks better than the wrong pickguard with no hole in the middle.”
In 2010, all your guitars ended up in a devastating flood in Nashville. Was Clarence in that flood?
It’s a great question. I gotta imagine he was, but I can’t recall now. But I mean, every guitar I had went into the Cumberland storage at Soundstage, which was right next to the river. Genius, right? [laughs]
It was a Friday when the rains came, and I was gonna start an album called Get Closer. I was in Hawaii at the time. We called Soundstage and asked if they could take all of my guitars off the high shelves they usually sat on and put them on the floor, ready to be loaded into the truck on Saturday morning. So everything had been put on the floor: my amps, guitars… You can’t make this up. [laughs]
Pretty much everything floated around in that river for, like, five days or something, because all the power lines were down, they weren’t letting people in.”
— Keith Urban
Pretty much everything floated around in that river for, like, five days or something, because all the power lines were down, they weren’t letting people in. They said, “We just gotta wait until all the water subsides before we can get into Soundstage.” [Due to the flood, Urban bought guitars on eBay to continue recording his 2010 album, Get Closer, an act he compared to cheating]
Everyone who had a guitar in Soundstage knew our guitars were floating in water for days, but we couldn’t get in and do anything about it. But you know, most of the guitars I had survived. They all got dried out, disassembled, meticulously cleaned, and put back together. Most of the acoustics were destroyed, but most of my electrics came back to life, and I kept them all.
It must have been agonizing to wait those five days to see the damage.
It was a lot of frustration. Obviously, we all knew the faster we got them out of the water, the better. It was really frustrating having to just wait for the water level to subside and for the authorities, or whoever, to say, “Okay, the coast is clear, you can come on in. Get your babies out of here.”
But it’s kind of remarkable, and I’m sure that a lot of luthiers learned a lot from it. And I noticed just how many guitars came back to life, especially the old ones. For me, the guitars that just collapsed and never recovered were mostly the newer ones. I found that the older ones, even the electronics in them, fared better across the board. It was really extraordinary. So they definitely don’t make ’em like they used to.
You mentioned John Mayer earlier, who also helped hook you up with PRS. How is that going?
In that same conversation that we were talking about before, he was talking about how Paul [Reed Smith] had made him his primary guitar that he was using in Dead & Co. He had said that he’d just like to play one guitar all night, much like Jerry [Garcia] did. I thought, “Man, I used to play one guitar all night.”
I said, “I’d love to get back to something that has the versatility that I need, because my music covers so many different styles, and it’s really hard to just have one guitar. But still, one guitar that’s got versatility would be good.” So that was the conversation that I started with Paul and Bev at PRS, and that’s still ongoing.
What exactly are you looking for beyond just one guitar to rule them all, so to speak, and how does Clarence factor into that, if at all?
It’s just a sort of discovery mission for every little detail of body style, scale length, woods, weights, pickups, yada yada yada. But interestingly, with what I mentioned earlier about how well someone knows a guitar, I sent Clarence to Paul, and said, “Well, let’s start by meticulously getting all the measurements, details, and data from Clarence so we can replicate at least his neck down to the nth degree.”
And so Paul did that and sent me the guitar. He came to Nashville to my studio, and I was playing a couple of the prototypes, and this particular one, where he’d mapped out Clarence, I was playing it, and I got up really high on the highest string, up past the 12th fret, and I was like, “Something feels weird up here, Paul. I can’t put my finger on what it is.”
Paul said, “Oh well, you had so much wear on Clarence that you can’t even press the E against the fretboard without it sliding off.” So, he fixed that.
I went, “What?” I picked up Clarence, and when I got to that fret, the E string never fell off once. I said, “What are you talking about?”
He looked at me and goes, “How are you doing that?” I said, “Because I know the guitar, Paul.”
I said, “This isn’t about physics; this is about familiarity.” And my familiarity was that I could make this work, even when another guitar player couldn’t. So, I said, “I need you to clone this verbatim — but don’t get all physical on me.” [laughs]
It was a really great little kind of moment of two ways of approaching things crashing into each other. And so the prototype is ongoing right now.
There’s something to be said about those late ’80s Fenders, where they sort of fight you, but in a good way.
That’s another conversation that’s been… interesting. [laughs] PRS guitars are historically revered for their fine craftsmanship, playability, and refinement, but I’m constantly asking Paul if he can put more fight in the guitar. [laughs]
What does he say to that?
Of course, Paul looks at me, and he goes, “Why? Why do you want to fight?” [laughs] I say to him, “I don’t want to fight, it’s just what I know. And when I get onstage, my adrenaline kicks in. This guitar doesn’t handle my adrenaline.” And then, Paul looks at me, and he goes, “Well, rein in your adrenaline.” And I go, “That’s a fair point.” [laughs]
And it is a fair point. I tell my guitar tech, Chris Miller, “When I hit it like this, it just sort of implodes.” And he goes, “Well, don’t hit it like that.”
I get it. I would like to have more of that refined approach, but it’s just not how I play.
Something about Fenders that I’ve always loved is that they’ve got an agricultural, working-class spirit in them that feels very familiar to me. I mean, I literally came from a working-class family, and there’s just a little bit of attitude in the guitar, where it almost says, “You’re gonna have to work to get me to do something.”
I respond well to that. It’s where the passion and the fire come from. It’s from that friction, you know? Friction is where the spark and heat come from. I’m just not one of those players that has that fluid dexterity and refinement.
It’ll be interesting to see if we can get to the place where I get what I need out of the guitar, and where Paul can maintain the qualities that PRS is so renowned for, you know? It’s almost like I feel like I’m trying to put some stick-ass rims on a Rolls-Royce, and Rolls-Royce is looking at me going, “Why, what are you doing?” [laughs]
When your PRS is finally done, what does that mean for Clarence’s place in your world?
Look, in a lot of ways, Clarence — and this is with all due respect to the Fender Custom Shop at the time — you know, the wood hasn’t fared as great through its lifetime as, say, some guitars from the ’50s and ’60s. So, he’s gotten beaten up, maybe past the great tonal quality that he used to have… he’s kind of lost a lot of that.
So I think what’ll happen with Clarence is I’ll probably have him hanging in my studio, and he’ll be just a great little studio guitar to grab for various things. But I don’t know if I’ll use him live very much, though I do love the 40th Anniversary Teles.
That’s why I’ve acquired a couple more over the years in that exact same spec. They made 300 of each of those, and I’ve got two others. So Clarence is number one, and then I have a 40th Anniversary which we just call Number Two. I take it out on the road occasionally, and that one sort of feels and sounds more like Clarence used to in his former glory.
