J Mascis discusses Johnny Marr’s guitar: “Nothing about it works for me”
J Mascis has seemingly never met a Fender Offset guitar that he didn’t like. The Dinosaur Jr. frontman has been playing Jazzmasters since the very beginning, often using them to produce his signature ear-splitting volume and tone. Usually, when he’s not playing a Jazzmaster, he’s switched over to the other offset model, the Fender Jaguar. If you ever catch Dinosaur out on tour, you’re sure to see Mascis wield an arsenal of Jazzmasters and Jaguars.
Apparently, though, not all Offsets are made equal. When Reverb recently caught up with Mascis to survey his guitar collection, they parsed through some of Mascis’ most iconic instruments. When it came to the Jaguar gifted to him by none other than fellow Jaguar legend Johnny Marr, however, Mascis wasn’t too thrilled about the six-string.
“I have like a Johnny Marr one he gave me, or something – that’s my other Jag,” Mascis explains. “It doesn’t work at all for me, really. Nothing about it works for me.”
It wasn’t the only revelation that Mascis made during the interview. While showing off his radically repainted 1958 Fender Telecaster, Mascis explained that the guitar was what he “played most all the leads I’ve ever done on.” In his inimitable style, Mascis appears totally chill with the revelation that the Telecaster may be more responsible for the sound of Dinosaur Jr. than the Jazzmaster.
When pressed on whether he uses the Tele for leads and the Jazzmaster for rhythm, Mascis shakes his head and calmly informs the crew that “in the studio, there’s hardly ever a Jazzmaster or a Big Muff on any studio recording”. When the interviewer expresses surprise, Mascis simply gives a little shrug and lets out a chuckle at the idea that the two pieces of equipment that are most commonly associated with him are not, in fact, used on most Dinosaur Jr. studio recordings.
Is Mascis likely just messing with the Reverb guys? Perhaps. Mascis’ sardonic drawl is so steeped in malaise that it could be hiding a slight prankster side. It would certainly be a mammoth revelation to find out that most of Dinosaur Jr.’s most famous tracks, from ‘Freak Scene’ to ‘Feel the Pain’ to the 1991 classic ‘The Wagon’, weren’t actually utilising Mascis’ most famed stage equipment. Then again, maybe nobody had bothered to ask Mascis before.
Check out the full collection in the video down below.
