Squier adds Troy Van Leeuwen Telecaster XII 12-string to its Paranormal Series

Squier has added a 12-string electric guitar bearing the name of Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen to its Paranormal Series. The Paranormal Troy Van Leeuwen Telecaster XII is priced at $599, £509 or €599, according to Guitar World, which tested the instrument.

The guitar is based on Van Leeuwen’s Custom Shop Telecaster XII, designed by Fender Master Builder Paul Waller. That instrument features on the band’s last four records, including a cover of Iggy Pop’s “Sunday” from their forthcoming studio album, “Perfecth”. In June, Van Leeuwen played the Squier version on Jimmy Kimmel Live, onstage with Andrew Watt and Michael Stipe. He told Guitar World the guitar delivers “the twang sound I’ve always loved”, with the extra strings adding lushness, and that it always finds its place in the mix of a band with three guitarists.

Made in China, it has a nyatoh body in a Copper Age finish, a bolt-on maple neck with a C profile and an Indian laurel fingerboard with 21 narrow tall frets. Scale length is 25.5 inches, with two Fender-designed Alnico single-coil pickups, volume and tone controls, three-way switching and a hybrid bridge: six strings go through the body, six load from the top. The neck plate is engraved with Van Leeuwen’s signature. It weighs 3.74kg, with no left-handed version and no case.

According to Guitar World, Fender and Squier had never offered a 12-string Telecaster as a regular production model. Bruce Springsteen and Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander have played custom Tele XIIs, and the Fender Custom Shop made a run of them in the ’90s.