Brad Paisley – Wheelhouse

In this video, Brad Paisley talks about his custom "G-Bender" Fender Telecaster:

“I grew up listening to players that played B-Benders - and a B-Bender guitar, which is what I have here (mine’s got a G) - B-Bender guitars have their own thing and you heard them on everything from the Eagles to Ricky Skaggs and Steve Wariner and those guys. It was really the most prominent bender. And it’s a higher string, that sort of… [pauses to demonstrate] But the G, I actually had Joe Glaser build me a G-Bender a long time ago, and the first guitar I got a G - it's exactly like a steel guitar mechanism. If you look at a steel guitar it’s a bunch of saddles that look like this and they can hook up - levers and pedals and things to any of them - and it'll move this a whole step, and there's a little lever back here when you pull down, it raises this G string up whole steps. [demonstrates] And it's something you can kinda use when you get stuck. The reason being that Jimmy Olander with Diamond Rio had a double bender - and I liked the sound of the G string - he had both where he could… [pauses to demonstrate] But the idea of that lower string… sounded a little more musical me. A little less twangy and a little more throaty… like a steel guitar maybe. What I find is, and I do a lot of bending without it… it’s got a different pedal steel sound to it… [demonstrates]”