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As we open the case on his Strat following a flight from LA, Philip finds a inspection document, indicating the good people of customs and airline security have been in the case. Ever the pragmatist…

"Better your case than your ass, I guess," says Philip. "I just kinda wonder… For what reason do they need to go in here?!"

Tell us about that guitar…

"It's a 1963 Fender Stratocaster and her name is Mother and it's my favourite guitar and I'm very grateful to have it."

Is it stock – any mods?

"Yeah, it's stock, apart from those saddles. I changed out two of them. These ones, I think, were found at the bottom of the ocean. They don't move any more! So I changed out the D and E strings."

Is that a tone thing, using the Graphtech saddles?

"Well with those it's just because those strings were being a little finicky. Y'know, I didn't find that it changed the tone enough for me to be too upset to just change two strings. At a certain volume, particularly…"

And the white over sunburst?

"Well I guess that's what Fender did back in the day, as I'm sure you know, they painted them all sunburst and somebody would call up and say, We need a white one, so they'd just spray white over the sunburst…"

And the other one we've seen you with?

"That's a '62, and it just happened to be white as well. I'm not a racist or anything! That's a rosewood board veneer, late '62, and I set up the same way with the (Dunlop) 6000 fret wire, but strangely enough that '62 sounds more like a '50s maple neck. I don't know why, but it just has a woody twanginess to it that's not shrill…"

Don't they say that on the round-lam boards, the frets actually go into the maple of the neck, which makes them sound more like maple-board guitars?

"It definitely does – there's less rosewood. And on this guitar too, there's not a lot of wood left on here so these are going far into the maple. I think it does make a difference – any slab boards I've played have been a little darker. I think the veneer board is a little brighter, more zing."

Do you think they 'play out'? We've heard people say that if you kick the crap out of a Strat for so long, they start to lose it a bit…

"Old Strats? I think they just get better. Ultimately things wear out and you have to replace parts and stuff. Necks wear out, and (laughs) the body will wear out… [points to the the massive gouge out of the body above the pickguard] I mean that's just straight, 100 per cent bad aim!"

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