TASH SULTANA: AUSTRALIA’S OWN GUITAR SUPERSTAR Five years ago, you might have been fortunate enough to stumble upon a lone busker performing for small change amid the hustle and bustle of Melbourne’s Bourke Street shopping precinct. Wielding an electric guitar and expertly navigating their way around a loop station to create a smorgasbord of head-snapping grooves and psychedelic guitar solos, it was clear from the get-go that this particular busker wasn’t just your average street performer. Yet still, no one could have predicted the astronomical rise to stardom that laid ahead of Tash Sultana. After the viral success of their 2016 Notions EP track ‘Jungle’ led into a never-ending touring cycle that’s eventuated in sold out shows and headlining festival sets all over the globe, there’s no doubting that Tash is now well and truly at the top of their game. At the age of 25, Sultana has achieved more than many could ever dream of, and now they’ve got yet another notch to add to their belt, joining an elite company of shredders to unveil their very own signature model with Fender - one of only three Australian artists to ever do so. “Honestly, it’s a bit of a no-brainer when one of the biggest guitar companies in the world comes to you and says, ‘Do you want to design your own line?’,” Tash gushes. “It's like, ‘absolutely man, what the fuck!?’
“The local music store that I've been going to since I was seven just told me that they had ordered the guitar when I went in there the other day. I remember I used to be a little kid walking in there just wishing that any guitar was mine, and saving up all my Christmas and birthday money for years just to buy one - now, they’ve got like five of them on the wall, which is just fucking sick. With a design that bridges the gap between classic Fender and forward-thinking ingenuity, the Tash Sultana Signature Stratocaster is a testament to the Melbourne multi-instrumentalist’s tremendous musical prowess. Instead of just regurgitating another production model and slapping a signature on the headstock to call it a day, it’s a guitar that’s made to encourage emerging generations of guitarists to follow in Sultana’s tracks, packing all the features necessary to imprint one’s sonic identity on the world stage. "I wanted a custom-looking guitar for the Signature series,” says Tash, describing the lengths they went to alongside Fender in order to perfect the guitar’s design. “But the thing is, is that it really is a custom guitar. It’s a Signature Stratocaster that exactly suits my specs, and it was really important for me to create an affordable Fender Strat that sounds and looks good.” Completed over the course of several years due to their endless
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touring commitments - and set back even further due to the impacts of COVID-19 - the Tash Sultana Signature Stratocaster is truly a unique guitar. With its rich Transparent Cherry finish, matching painted headstock, gold hardware and pearloid pickguard, the guitar packs an immediate visual flair, while an alder body and maple neck adds a classic touch of Fender tone. However, as Tash reveals, their signature guitar could have turned out to be a wholly different looking instrument altogether. “I actually prototyped a different model first that wasn't quite right, and I had to make the time to get it right. It was very brown and had a rosewood neck, which is why we had to change direction, because you're not allowed to do that anymore,” says Tash, referring to rosewood’s status as an endangered tonewood. “It looked classic, but it looked like an old man's guitar - like some sixty or seventy-year-old jazz cat was going to pick up this guitar, which is cool, but I'm not a seventy-year-old man, and I just wanted to revamp it a little bit. So we came up with this Cherry Red colour, matched the body to the headstock, popped the gold hardware on there, changed the scratch plate from tortoiseshell to pearloid and put a maple fretboard on, and then I saw it in person and was like, ‘That's the one. That’s it’.”
mixdownmag.com.au
