Ed O'Brien on Fender

Ed O'Brien sits down with Fender in a Los Angeles canyon and goes through the guitars one by one. First the records: Sgt Pepper, handed to him by his father at six, which did not take; his mother's copy of Bridge Over Troubled Water; a poster of Paul Weller mid-leap in a WH Smith at seven; and then Andy Summers on “Walking on the Moon”, which made the guitar seem the most interesting object in the world to him. What he heard in it was a sound that came from somewhere else, more than any technique.

A Squier Strat bought in 1986 for about £180 after saving up, black with a white pickguard and a neck he did not care about, did Pablo Honey and The Bends until the band's gear was stolen out of a van in 1995. Its replacement, a Clapton Strat with Lace Sensors and the mid-boost, is the OK Computer guitar.

He reaches for the sustainer when he wants to leave guitar territory for keyboard territory, and it has to live in a Strat because the tremolo arm is half the technique. He has a theory that songs already exist and have to be tuned in to, and he thinks the Strat's design is like that, something that was always there. On amps, he moved to Vibro-Kings after hearing Pete Townshend's sound at Live 8 and finally A/B'd them against a rig he had not changed since 1992.