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Fender’s Justin Norvell on guitar-smashing: “We’re alright with it”

Quickly! Smash every guitar in your collection! Or don’t. They’re your guitars.

IDLES' Smashed guitars

IDLES’ smashed guitars. Image: Eleanor Jane

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The debate surrounding the smashing of guitars has resurfaced in 2021, partially thanks to Phoebe Bridgers hammering a stage monitor with her Danelectro during a live performance on Saturday Night Live. Now Fender’s EVP Justin Norvell has weighed in on the topic, saying that the Fender camp are okay with it but want to “strike a balance”, as they’re still proud of their creations.

Fender’s executive vice-president of products Justin Norvell helpfully explained his and Fender’s position on the act in general. “The guitar is what I call a sonic paintbrush,” Norvell told ABC Audio. “It’s something for an artist to use, to create with.”

“So while people look at a guitar being smashed and say, ‘That could go to someone else,’ or whatever, in that moment and what [an artist is] doing and how they’re feeling, if smashing encapsulates part of that…”

The call to ABC Audio was to discuss Fender’s new Kurt Cobain Jag-Stang guitar, during which Norvell remembered Cobain’s own habits. “I was lucky enough to go to a Nirvana show,” he recalled, “and I did see Kurt smash a guitar over one of the In Utero angels at their first show of the In Utero tour.”

Norvell also noted that guitar-smashing is a “long-standing tradition” in rock, and that Fender is “alright with it” but that they “also take a lot of pride in what we’re building and what we’re making, so there’s always a balance that we have to strike there”.

Norvell’s comments follow Phoebe Bridgers partially destroying her guitar during an SNL performance. While she drew the ire of a number of online commentators, smashing guitars predates even Cobain: rock royalty such as Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix both famously destroyed instruments as part of an expression of unrestrained rock ’n’ roll anger.

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