Fender Wants to Make the Future of Rock More Female
Sometimes I really miss the rock ladies of the 90’s… Alanis, Courtney, Shirley. Rock seems to be super dude-centric most of the time. The eye candy is nice but sometimes you need a rock star chick to balance out the testosterone — and you know, to sing about breakups from a chick’s POV.
At the opening of Fender’s new Hollywood store, though the red carpet had lots of pretty dudes, you can imagine my excitement when I heard that Bleached, the all-girl (plus one dude drummer) punk band would be playing the opening set.
Bleached immediately hit us with a wave of energy as they erupted into their first song. And duh, I was super jealous of their colorful Fender guitars, but mostly, it gave me the warm fuzzies to see females totally rocking out. It also seems front woman of Bleached, Jennifer Calvin, agrees, saying, “Over the years women have been discouraged from getting too loud or noisy in many aspects of their lives.” #Truth.
Just then, I noticed a young girl who was maybe 13 years old, in the front row, singing every single word. It was clear this little one was a huge fan of Bleached, and besides dressing exactly like the band, you bet your ass she’s probably learning to play the guitar too.
If you’ve ever seen a Fender electric guitar in person, you’ll know the mesmerizing beauty it possesses and the true goals it inspires.
And lucky for us, Fender is making it easier than ever to learn guitar. They have a whole radical suite of digital learning products slated to debut in 2017, which means you can buy that sweet sweet guitar online, name it Johnny, and spend every night learning to rock from your bedroom.
Bleached was playing a new line of beautiful Fenders called The Offsets Collection, which incredible rockers like Liz Phair, Norah Jones, PJ Harvey, Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads), Theresa Wayman (Warpaint), Alicia Bognanno (Bully), and Lindsay Troy (Deap Vally) all play, too.
Fender tells us the Offsets are a great model for us ladies “due to their more compact shape [and] strings’ scale length [being] slightly smaller.” They aren’t strictly made for chicks, but they have features that may work better for female players. Jennifer Calvin of Bleached says her favorite guitar of all time is “the Mustang. I love how rock n’ roll it sounds, dirty and vintage, almost like you can hear dirt on the strings.”
But as a bonus, they’re like, really pretty.
The good news is you can now order one of these babes online, as of today. So now instead of just copping Courtney Love’s amazing 90’s grunge fashion vibes, you can cop her sick songwriting skills too (or just play some bar chords really loud, because why not?).
For you more advanced players, Fender has some cool new stuff for you too, like the new ModShop, where you can design and modify your dream guitar by choosing from a wide variety of customizable options starting with your favorite Fender model.
And no worries, we won’t even judge you for the gold hardware and the magenta glitter flake finish if that means you’ll be swinging your pony and ripping a major guitar solo sometime soon…
The future of rock is already starting to look more ladylike, dontcha think?
Follow Bleached on Social Media:
Instagram: @hellobleached
Twitter: @hellobleached
Follow Fender on Social Media:
Instagram: @Fender
Twitter: @Fender
Photo by Getty Images for Fender
