Feeder

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – and that’s especially true if you’ve got as many vintage Fenders as Grant Nicholas.

- Rob Laing

I’m old school,” Grant Nicholas admits. “There’s a lot to be said with keeping with something you know and having your own character.” Amen to that. Grant still wears his 90s values proudly on his sleeve in Feeder, so there’s no Fractals in sight. Instead we have drool-worthy vintage Fenders and a good ’ol pedalboard with fuzz machines and delay oddities. “I do use pretty much all of them in a set,” says Grant, who’s been considering a switching system. “You have to remember, I’m trying to cover nine albums. But it is a lot of pedals – I’m tap dancing sometimes!”

GUITARS 1966 FENDER JAZZMASTER ‘OLD BROWN’

1 “This is Old Brown, the first Jazzmaster that I ever got. I part exchanged an American DigiTech Whammy for it that I wasn’t really using much. This guy in Walthamstow really wanted a Whammy pedal so I gave him one and about £300, which was a pretty good deal! It’s obviously had a life but I really like the neck on it – the big headstock and the square inlays. The original pickups say ’66 on the back which makes sense with the headstock. I’ve replaced the bridge pickup with a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder, which I use on most of my live guitars.

“I think it was probably refinished years ago as it’s a funny colour, like a Tobacco Sunburst, which is probably not original. I’ve just fitted a Staytrem, it’s like the Mustang bridge. Really, really good. I’ve got a couple of guitars with it on now. I used to buy the Allparts Mustang bridges, but the Staytrems are much more versatile with better adjustments and something on the saddle, so they don’t wobble around.

1967 FENDER JAZZMASTER