Iron Maiden are celebrating their 50th Anniversary and to mark the occasion Fender and Jackson have rolled out a limited edition collection of signature guitars for Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Janick Gers, and Steve Harris.
And what we like about these is that sense of classicism. Iron Maiden might have been the NWOBHM band that made it to big, graduating to stadium shows and making their commute via their own plane.
But the high-altitude of their success hasn’t messed with their heads. They know what they like.
It’s Fender Stratocasters all the way – or, in Smith’s case, a variation on the Strat, with his Jackson SC1 signature model conforming to the hotrodded Superstrat S-style design idiom. Hey, Fender owns Jackson, so it’s all part of the same family.
Harris? He likes West Ham United sweat bands, wedge monitors as a foot rest, and Fender's O.G. bass guitar, the Precision Bass, to inject the gallup. That’s how he rolls.
“Honouring Iron Maiden’s fifty years of pushing heavy metal forward, this collection brings together the signature instruments that helped define their unmistakable sound,” said Max Gutnik, chief product officer at Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. “From Dave Murray’s high-performance Stratocaster models and Janick Gers’ energetic, vintage-leaning Strat to Steve Harris’ unmistakable Precision Bass and Adrian Smith’s versatile Jackson SC1, each instrument carries the tone, feel, and power behind Maiden’s multi-guitar attack.
“These anniversary models are more than tributes; they are stage-ready tools built to inspire today’s players and the next generation.”
Where do you start with all this?
I will never get over the excitement of seeing my favorite player from my favorite band playing one of my guitars
Andy Hicks, Masterbuilder at the Fender Custom Shop
It has to be with with the Custom Shop, with the Masterbuilt Dave Murray Strat that is priced at £10,399/$11,000 and was built by Andy Hicks, ace luthier, die-hard Maiden fan – and Murray just happens to be his favourite player.
“Dave Murray has always been my favorite guitar hero. Not only is his style absolutely brilliant but he also proved to me long ago that Fender absolutely belongs in the world of heavy metal,” says Hicks. “It was an absolute honour to build this guitar for him and I will never get over the excitement of seeing my favorite player from my favorite band playing one of my guitars.”
It is quite the guitar. NOS Olympic White, two-piece alder body, a walnut neck, bolted-on, shaped into a ‘60s oval C profile, finished with oil, topped with a flat-laminated compound radius (9.5” to 14”) rosewood fingerboard that seats 21 medium-jumbo stainless steel frets.
The walnut neck is as far as the design radicalism goes. Otherwise, it’s exactly what you would expect from a Dave Murray Strat, Seymour Duncan Hot Rails stacked humbuckers at the bridge and neck position, a single-coil sized JB Jr in the middle position.
Hicks and Murray saved all the super high-end stuff in the build itself, in other words beefing up all the components you don’t see with that Floyd Rose 1000 Series vibrato buttressed by an AxLabs Tone Claw Locking Spring Claw and Heavy Duty Noiseless Springs plus a 42mm Big Brass Block and Tremolo Stopper, titanium string lock screws, saddle mounting screws, nut clamp screws, lock nut blocks, saddle inserts and bridge posts all from FU-Tone components.
These appointments don’t necessarily catch the eye – the audience won't spot them – but they’ll give Murray’s Strat some extra oomph in sustain, tone, and road-readiness. Fender says this is his number one touring electric guitar now.
Murray's Ensenada-built Strat is not bad either, and at £1,499/$1,799, it is an eminently affordable pro-quality high-performance electric.
You’ve got a pair of Seymour Duncan JB humbuckers at the neck and bridge, and an Antiquity single-coil in the middle for some serious Strat spank.
There’s the Floyd Rose R2 double-locking tremolo for divebombs, the compound radius rosewood fingerboard, and the black finish with the white pickguard. There is something nice, clean and proper about this build.
It’s a similar story with Janick Gers’ signature Strat. Again, black finish, white pickguard, an alder-bodied Strat, and there is the 50th anniversary heel plate that’s across this whole collection. But if anything, this is even more classic. How many metal guitars have you played lately that have a 7.25” radius rosewood fingerboard and a 2-point vintage-style vibrato with bent-steel saddles? Or one that has vintage tall frets?
What makes this stage-ready for an Iron Maiden show are the Seymour Duncan JB Jr humbuckers at the bridge and neck.
There’s a ‘60s Fender Strat single-coil in the middle, and with all of the electric guitar pickups occupying single-coil real estate, you could reverse engineer a serious – and seriously traditional – ‘60s style Strat out of this. It’ll set you back £1,449/$1,699.
Harris’s P-Bass similarly splits the difference between vintage and modern. On the vintage side of the ledger you’ve got that 7.25” radius maple fingerboard, the single P-Bass split-coil pickup, the Vintage Precision Bridge, and as per Harris’s preferences you will find a set of his signature flatwound Rotosound bass strings inside the gig bag (these all ship with a gig bag, with a case for the Masterbuilt Murray Strat).
Modernistic updates include the jumbo frets, the Satin Black Finish, and the mirrored pickguard, which is kind of Phil Lynott. And this one has a maple body “providing distinctly defined tonal character that traditional alder or ash simply can’t match”. The Steve Harris 50th Anniversary Precision Bass is priced £/$1,699.
Jackson describes Adrian Smith’s 50th Anniversary SC1 as a ‘Best of…’ his signature models with the brand. Many of these features will be familiar to Smith fans.
It has the San Dimas doublecut body, finished in white with black pickguard and hardware, the HSS pickup configuration with a pair of Fender’s Samarium Cobalt Noiseless single-coils giving up the Strat tones, while the DiMarzio Super Distortion humbucker at the bridge does the heavy lifting. You have the licensed Strat headstock.
All of which can be found on his Jackson USA series model. But this one ships with a painted headstock, white to match the body. It has a 12” to 16” compound radius maple fingerboard, much like most of the new builds coming from today’s FMIC-owned high-performance brands (EVH Gear, Charvel, Jackson).
It has a top-mounted Floyd Rose 1000 Series vibrato. It’s super practical, with the truss rod adjustment wheel positioned at the top of the fingerboard.
The neck is quartersawn maple, reinforced with graphite and bolted to the body, with 22 jumbo frets giving it a contemporary feel. It is priced £1,499/$1,799.
You can find out more details at Fender and Jackson – and head over to the Fender Custom Shop for more on that Masterbuilt Dave Murray Strat.
