The Colour And The Switc h

How Troy Van Leeuwen styled out his signature Jazzmaster...

Stained in a deep oxblood red, Troy Van Leeuwen’s signature Fender Jazzmaster has a suitably high-gloss finish and features 60s-style block inlays, all of which were crucial to a man who dresses and plays sharp. Troy didn’t want to reinvent the instrument: “You don’t want to mess with it, y’know” – but it had to look good.

“The colour and the mid-60s block inlay and bound neck, and the matching headstock, those were all just aesthetic things that I loved about Jazzmasters in the mid-60s,” the guitarist says. One practical modification is found in the Jazzmaster’s tone circuit switching, where a toggle switch replaces the black plastic slider. It’s a little tweak but it really does make all the difference.

“Live, I need to switch between instruments really quickly, and so, in many cases, that turns into a killswitch,” says Troy. “You turn that top switch off and then you can just flip it up, and then I can hit the lap-steel and the guitar will be muted until I go back to it.” And with a pair of American Vintage ‘65 Single-Coil Jazzmaster pickups, it sounds as good as it looks.