To me this guy and other childhood favorite, Jimmy Page, represented all things Les Paul. To me the Les Paul was the ultimate hard rock weapon. I later found out much of first two Zep albums was a tele and now this!! https://www.tdpri.com/threads/so-regarding-ace-frehley-and-a-tele.808573/
I'm not a Kiss guy, but yeah, it's remarkable how many Tele's turn up on guitarists you don't associate with them...
So strat has Yngwie, Deep Purple, and Iron Maiden so it's pretty well represented in metal, but tele? I was into new wave back in the day so tele was used a lot and of course its most popular in country. But the tele has a stronger and fatter bridge pickup than the strat and works distortion well. It just doesn't look hard rock!
@65refinyellow .As far as a classic single coil Tele, I feel like it could do Maiden or Sabbath just fine with proper EQ tweaking. Back in the day I was in a pretty loud band, and our lead guitarist used a Tele a bunch. But we weren't what you'd call straight modern metal, more a punk/noise/sludge metal hybrid. I think you'd be hard pressed to get convincing modern metal sounds out of it. But, same with a Strat in that regard. Of course, if you're liberal with what you call a Tele, you can put a big fat humbucker or a hot rail in anything. Jim Root and similar Tele models are very popular among metal guys
The new contemporary roasted maple neck tele can be metal and the black hardware helps. I know it's just hardware but for those who doubt a guitar's intended use, black hardware helps point the direction and the current contemporary tele is "metal" enough looking without need for further modifications. I would have personally liked chrome or nickel hardware in this series, but black will sell way more for sure.
The middle position on my CV 50's tele is noise cancelling and handles extreme gain with ease. Unlike doing this on the 2/4 positions on a Strat with RWRP middle, the tone is actually pretty balanced between bite and girth. I am thinking I will make a Riff Raff video for March using just the Tele to show this shred setting. Also I've been thinking of getting one of those new white contemporary Teles, it would be nice to have a 2 humbucker 22 fret guitar with a string through body.
