“They’re not my strings, not my pickups, not my anything, but I just thought, ‘Well, it’s eight o’clock, just make a show!’”: Julian Lage says using rented Telecasters to perform live freed him from gear anxiety

As guitar players, we can all get a little bit precious about our instrument, obsessing over every detail, and doubly so when it comes to playing live. Jazz phenom Julian Lage is no different, but he says he had an epiphany when he joined John Zorn for a string of live dates and was unable to take any of his own electric guitars.

Speaking to MusicRadar ahead of the launch of his latest studio album, Speak To Me, which drops today via Blue Note, the jazz guitar maestro said he had to backline Telecasters to fulfil his dates with Zorn, and it proved to be a “wild” experience that would ultimately liberate him from many of the gear hangups he might have had, and what he thought he needed to put in a good performance. 

If drummers, pianists and sound engineers could all get the job done using rental equipment, why not guitarists?

“It was so wild,” says Lage. “Whereas I would usually feel like, ‘This is what I need, these instruments, to feel comfortable,’ I took a page out of everybody else’s book – drummers, piano players, acoustic bassists, front of house engineers – using equipment that is there and showing up and making it work, and I loved it!”

Julian Lage - Speak To Me (Official Video) - YouTube

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Many of us will have played through a rented amplifier. But a rented guitar is a different story. That's unchartered territory for most of us. Lage, however, relishes these experiments. 

This is the player who played an entire tour on his Telecaster's bridge pickup to "settle a bet" with himself, an experience that left him going back to his hotel room with his ears ringing. Speaking to MusicRadar in 2021, Lage said he once taped a stethoscope to the back of his Telecaster.

“I had to play really quiet because stethoscopes are designed to pick up your heartbeat through your muscles, tissue, blood and everything,” he said. “But I wanted to hear what that under a microscope thing was like and it was so revealing. I could only handle it for about a day and then thought, ‘This is abusive!’”

So all things considered, this experience with backlined guitars is not that radical. But it did mean his Collings 470 JL signature guitar and Nacho Guitars vintage Telecaster replica had to stay home. Instead, each night Lage would turn up to be presented with a different Tele for the gig. 

Julian Lage - Nothing Happens Here - YouTube

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Some were better than others but the lesson Lage learned, and what we can take from it is that the Telecaster in all its guises remains an effective design, and when it comes down to it you can make any guitar work.

“Because most Telecasters, there’s something similar. It’s amazing,” says Lage. “You can have a Telecaster and there are so many varieties it is absurd. I would get these guitars and they’d be fine! They’d be whatever. Some were really great. Some were fine. But the decisions you make don’t really have to do with it, and it was so liberating – challenging.

“They’re not my strings, not my pickups, not my anything, but I just thought, ‘Well, it’s eight o’clock, just make a show!’ And that’s helped me relinquish a lot of urgency around needing any gear. Of course, given the option I would prefer what I have, but if not given that option we’ll do our best.”

In short, don’t blame the tools. You don’t hear the plumber saying they did a bad job because the wrench they were using wasn’t up to much. “That’s precisely it!” says Lage. “Just plumb.”

 You can read more about the guitars and the tools Lage used on Speak To Me in an interview coming soon to MusicRadar. Speak To Me is out now via Blue Note.