Lee Kiernan is one half of the guitar duo that makes up the ever-evolving sound of IDLES, who – after rising from Bristol, England’s vibrant post-punk scene with 2017’s Brutalism – have carved a genre-bending path for themselves.
That direction is epitomized in their latest studio album, 2024’s Tangk, as well as the film score for Darren Aronofsky’s dark comedy crime thriller, Caught Stealing.
As for Kiernan, he’s been inextricably linked to guitar modding – and his shell pink Fender Mustang – since the early days of the band. In fact, Fender recently anointed him – alongside co-guitarist Mark Bowen – as a poster boy for the Player II Modified series, the legacy brand’s range of classic guitars with a pre-modded twist.
And like every band story ever, Kiernan got his now go-to six-string after a stolen-guitar saga.
“Bowen and I had some guitars stolen early, early, early days of Idles, and Fender heard about it because we were trying to find them,” Kiernan tells Lee Anderton on Anderton’s YouTube channel.
“And David [Mulqueen, Artist Marketing] at Fender said, ‘Come in and try some things.’ And I tried this [referring to his pink Mustang], and then, because it was a rosewood neck – I don’t like rosewood necks, there’s no logic to it whatsoever – I asked whether or not it could be done with a maple.
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“He sorted it out, and I bought this. This was the first guitar I bought for IDLES and it’s been there ever since, and I’ve smashed it up, reglued it, snapped it… I love growing with it!”
When asked whether simple guitars prompt him to grow technically, Kiernan reflects, “No. The only reason for this is, when I was young, I think the first guitar I bought myself was a Tom DeLonge Strat. And it had one pickup.”
He continues, “I just loved the idea that there was no faff. And then, when we were touring, I had my Tele I got from my friend Luke, which is an American [Tele], but jumping about, hitting things, getting in the crowd, tone knob changing, the pickup selector sliding around…
“And then I’d start taping things down, and then that would wear off and move again. I thought, ‘I don’t use them, right?’ So I removed them [and] so for years, I was ripping stuff out of the guitar that wasn’t necessary.
“It isn’t until, the last two years – three years, four years, whatever – when [I was like] ‘You do need some of those things.’ So they’ve started to creep back in.”
Last year, IDLES’ radical guitar duo dissected their “violent, dark tones,” what they learned from Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, and why they think digital modelers are “wack.”
