Review : Fender Brad Paisley Esquire

Hello readers and welcome to 2023. I hope that the holidays were great for you and I pass on my wishes for a healthy and happy 2023. It is in fact January 1st 2023 as I write this, although publication will be a few days afterwards.

Introduction

During the Boxing Week sales I purchased a Fender Brad Paisley Esquire. Not because I can play like Brad Paisley (I cannot) or because I am a huge Brad Paisley fan (I’m not a big country music person) but because I wanted an Esquire. I actually was looking for a Squier Classic Vibe ‘60s Esquire because it would not be a primary player and I therefore did not want to spend a lot of money, but despite Fender listing them as current on their website up until Dec 31, that model has been discontinued for some time. Despite it being a New Year, Fender’s website continues to suck and blow simultaneously. They only list one Esquire, yet Fender dealers show all manner of Fender USA Esquires in a variety of colours, priced the same as a USA made Telecaster. I did get about five minutes to play it in store, through a Fender Tonemaster Super Reverb. It sounded pretty good, and I really liked the neck shape despite the feel, and the fact that the barbed wire doing a bad impersonation of strings was both gritty and pretty dead sounding..

Price

Let’s get price out of the way up front. In Canada, the MAP price for the Brad Paisley Esquire is $2199, which sounds decent until you discover that it is made in the Mexico factory. I think very highly of the Fender Mexican made products, but I find that price point ludicrous for a basic guitar regardless of where it is made. Part of it is paying for the Brad Paisley name, the black sparkle finish and the Paisley scratchplate but in the words of the film Used Cars, it has a price that is just too F***in’ High. Moving on.

Body and Neck

The construction is quite unique. The neck is maple and so is the fretboard. The truss rod is laid in at the back via the skunk stripe and unlike a real vintage Esquire can be adjusted at the headstock. A good thing. While it may not be “vintage” in not having to remove a neck to adjust the truss rod, requiring to do that is just plain dumb and has been for decades. The neck is a very classic U shape, despite what Fender calls it. The body is where the difference happens. The top and back are spruce, a fairly soft wood. The majority of the body is Pawlownia, a super lightweight wood but with superb dimensional stability. Think the weight of balsa but with the stability of alder. Purists may go apoplectic with these choices but it makes for a super lightweight and highly resonant guitar. I am aware that there are folks who think that tonewoods do not matter in electric guitars. I will simply say that I think that these otherwise nice people are nuts and move on.

Closer look at the black and silver pickguard

Electronics

Esquires had one pickup in the bridge and no neck pickup at all. The three position switch gave the bridge pickup with no tone control in position 1, added the tone control in position 2 and added a fixed capacitor without tone in position 3. This means a different sound from a traditional Telecaster. The Brad Paisley Esquire has two pickups, and the neck pickup is a Seymour Duncan Secret Agent Brad Paisley Signature unit that resides under the pickguard and is invisible, so the three way switch acts like a traditional Telecaster. The tailpiece is a string through body design and the saddles are brass barrels. The docs say compensated but I say expect the usual challenges around getting intonation right on all the strings. The guitar came equipped with the standard Fender 9-42 barbed wire.

Finish

The Brad Paisley Esquire is “road-worn” which means all of them are beaten up in the same way. The metal parts are discolored and tarnished, and the high gloss lacquer over the quite pretty sparkle black paint is flattened out. The paisley pickguard looks great but feels a bit gritty. The frets, in my opinion, definitely needed a polish, so I did that and the back of the neck felt both dirty and sticky to me. I cleaned the whole instrument and while I was able to get the neck to feel not so sticky, if I was keeping the guitar, I would be going at it with Monty’s Instrument Food and some 0000 steel wool. I found this overall finish disappointing because underneath the fakery resides a really nice guitar. The neck is a Broadcaster style U. The Fender docs say a V neck, but it is not. It’s a chunky U, like a baseball bat and as I like these old style big fat necks, I think that it is a joy to play. I do have a ‘50s Telecaster from Fender Japan and it does have a V neck. The difference in feel is immediately obvious.

Sound and Case

Plugged into a reissue ‘59 Bassman it sounds really nice. The pickups are a bit noisy as you might expect. It did not sound as good into the Tone King Imperial Mark II, which honestly surprised me a lot. The nut is bone and despite the known issues with intonating these types of bridges, it stays in tune really well.

The guitar comes in a decent enough Fender gig bag. Not awesome like a MONO bag but far superior to the crap bag that came with my PRS Core Silver Sky. I used to be really demanding of cases, but I have so many cluttering up space, I would happily pay less to not get a case and then buy a couple of MONO bags to fit different instruments and be done with it, but that’s just a personal opinion.

Final Thoughts

So if it plays great, sounds pretty decent and can likely be with some care de-road worned, why will I be returning it, before this review posts? My reasons are simple. It has no magic to it that makes me want to grab it over other Telecasters or T style guitars. It’s not really an Esquire because there is a neck pickup, which while sounding glorious and to my ear a lot nicer than the “Fender Custom Wound” (whatever that means in real life) bridge pickup means not a true Esquire sound. It’s a superb Telecaster sound in my view, but not an Esquire sound. Despite the marvellous resonance and light weight, I’m not hearing anything significantly different from other Telecasters. While I love the neck shape, I already have a Telecaster with that big U neck that feels a lot better stock, without me having to start scrubbing the back of it with wax and steel wool. And finally, I just cannot handle the price tag for a Mexican built instrument. At a thousand dollars less, there would be less a question to me, but it’s just too expensive and doesn’t stand out enough (even with the Boxing Week discount) to warrant keeping. To be blunt, I could buy a Squier Classic Vibe ‘50s Telecaster, remove the neck pickup, change the scratchplate and the wiring and have a more Esquire like instrument. I do have a Classic Vibe ‘50s Telecaster that I modded to make my own version of Keith Richards’ Micawber and that Squier build is superb. I could use the same frame to make my own Esquire for less than half the cost of the Brad Paisley Esquire.

I will say however, that from a neck and tone perspective (waxing and polishing the neck done if for me), the Brad Paisley Esquire is the best Telecaster that I have played in some time and if you do not already own a Telecaster, I would encourage a play test against any USA made Telecaster, or any other Mexico made Telecaster. That Secret Agent pickup is very impressive.

It is my opinion that Fender is jacking prices all the time for no good customer reason and while their general QC is still much better than Gibson’s they have a long road before they reach the quality level of much less expensive PRS SE instrument in their USA and Mexican built current options. Thus, it is being packed up in its bag and box and will be heading back to the store for a full refund. I had high hopes for this guitar, but sometimes, the expectations are just not achieved.