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Lot Essay
At the start of the Call The Comet album, I asked Fender if they could make me a Signature Jaguar with what’s usually called a ‘Champagne Sparkle’ finish. They experimented in the Custom Shop, and the result was this one-of-a-kind guitar, which we called ‘Comet Sparkle’ and which I used for my shows during 2017 and 2018. When Hans Zimmer asked me to play guitar on the soundtrack to the James Bond movie No Time To Die in 2018, I used this guitar to play the ‘James Bond Theme’ and later performed the title song ‘No Time to Die’ with Billie Eilish at the Brit Awards in 2020.
JOHNNY MARR, 2026
The sublime culmination of the four-year development and successful rollout of the Fender Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar (see footnote to lots 82 and 83), this custom Comet Sparkle Signature Jaguar has perhaps become the instrument most immediately associated with Marr in his solo era. With the intention of introducing a new custom colour concept with every album, Marr mulled it over while recording his third solo studio album Call The Comet and came up with the idea to create a yellow sparkle Jag as a tribute to Joan Didion, inspired by the iconic photographs of Didion in her yellow Corvette Stingray. Marr told us: They were making it when I got a call from Neil Whitcher at Fender saying, “we’re about to put the yellow over the sparkle but you might want to see how it looks as it’s really nice without it”. I saw a picture and thought it looked great. I knew the album was going to be “Call The Comet” and it would be my main guitar during that whole touring period, hence the name ‘Comet Sparkle’. Finished in a vintage white with silver and gold sparkle, the nitrocellulose lacquer has aged beautifully with time.
The guitar arrived with Marr in mid to late 2017 and was swiftly set up in line with his preferences for immediate use in the studio. Speaking to Premier Guitar in 2018, Marr revealed his preferred set up at this time: I find you absolutely have to have .011s on a Jag. No question on that! Guitarists that are used to playing with 010s on other guitars will find a Jag with .011s will behave in a way they understand. I personally set up my Jags so they have a little bit of fight in them. I won't say high action, but they're certainly not set up for fast shredding, and that gives it some real punch when you're playing rhythm, and some real wallop and bottom end. I have a little shim that I put in the neck that's .6 mm, and I find the neck angle is crucial on Jaguars, more so than almost any other guitar. The neck angle and the string break across the bridge really needs to be fine-tuned, but I've got it down now, between myself and my tech. It's all about string tension with them.
CALL THE COMET
Marr used his new Comet Sparkle Jag to record the Call The Comet’s lead single ‘The Tracers’, as well as the songs ‘A Different Gun’ and ‘Spiral Cities’, which would become the album’s third single. Speaking to Music Radar’s Rod Brakes about Call The Comet in 2018, Marr revealed I wanted to make a modern rock record… I just walked into this place with one song written, which was ‘Spiral Cities’, and I just fell into trying to find this feeling of contemporary rock music. Running through the record was a plea for an alternative society. I had the title [‘The Tracers’] for a while and it suggested an otherworldly kind of being, Marr told NME in 2018. The idea of the song is that the Earth is looking towards alternative intelligence to help us out from the malaise or dilemma that we may find ourselves in… I was writing ‘The Tracers’ over the period of a week or so, and this phrase ‘Call The Comet’ came from my subconscious as a kind of plea. This sounds highfalutin, but it’s a call for something to come and help us because materialism isn’t working, capitalism isn’t working, religion isn’t working, politics isn’t working. Released on 15 June 2018, the critically acclaimed Call The Comet became Marr’s third UK Top Ten album.
CALL THE COMET TOUR
The guitar was first seen in April 2018 when Marr was photographed for a cover feature in the July 2018 issue of Guitarist magazine to promote the forthcoming album. The guitar made its first appearance on stage when Marr kicked off a series of exclusive album launch shows in Europe and North America with an intimate gig at the Button Factory in Dublin on 21 May 2018. Marr played the guitar throughout the three-week launch tour, which included a show at New York’s Gramercy Theatre on 31 May, before closing in Seattle on 7 June 2018. Marr performed a short set with this guitar after he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the GQ Men of the Year Awards at The Tate Modern in London on 5 September 2018. Naturally, Marr used the Comet Sparkle almost exclusively throughout the Call The Comet Tour, which kicked off at Nashville’s Cannery Ballroom in the US on 15 September and wrapped up at EartH in London on 9 December 2018. Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder joined Marr on stage to perform The Smiths’ ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ during Marr’s show at the Ohana Festival in Dana Point, California on 28 September. Following the success of the tour, Marr returned to the US for another coast-to-coast leg, from 1-21 May 2019, before heading into a packed summer festival season across the UK and Europe that included sets at London’s All Points East on 25 May, Tramlines in Sheffield on 20 July, Rock en Seine in Paris on 23 August, and Electric Picnic near Dublin on 1 September.
GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL 2019
The highlight of the festival season was Marr’s triumphant set at Glastonbury Festival on 29 June 2019 – 35 years after he first performed there with The Smiths – which saw him treat the crowd to Smiths’ favourites ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ and ‘How Soon Is Now?’, before closing with a rousing rendition of ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ that erupted into a rapturous mass singalong as Marr’s Comet Sparkle Jag shimmered in the stage lights. Later that same evening, Marr made a legendary guest appearance on stage with The Killers to close their headline set with The Smiths’ ‘This Charming Man’ and the band’s own megahit ‘Mr. Brightside’. That was a nice moment, reflects Marr. I’d not met or played with The Killers before, so it was a matter of going into the dressing room just before they went on. I played my set with my band earlier in the day and then I went across to the Pyramid Stage – we’re all stood in a circle in the dressing room and just played ‘This Charming Man’ through, not plugged in or anything. It hadn’t really occurred to me that there was going to be like 140,000 people watching or anything, I just went “alright, here it goes!” And I had never played Mr. Brightside before, so I learnt that in the dressing room. I mean obviously I know the song, but we just ran it down once and I said “right, see you out there, have a good time”. Going into Mr. Brightside was quite a moment really, it’s a moment to remember. You know you’ve seen it on television when you look out at Glastonbury on the Saturday night from the Pyramid Stage and you see all the fires and campfires and the flags and all that… well when you’re on the stage, that’s all you can see as far as the eye can see, and Mr. Brightside’s a bit of a banger so it was fun, yeah, it was a fun moment. And it was the start of playing quite a lot on stage with The Killers because we then went on tour around America… so it was a good job I learnt the chords to Mr. Brightside.
JAMES BOND NO TIME TO DIE
In early 2020, regular collaborator Hans Zimmer asked Marr to play guitar on the score for the 25th James Bond film No Time To Die (2021). While the majority of the score was recorded with his Gibson doubleneck (next lot), Marr played Monty Norman’s famous ‘James Bond Theme’ on this guitar. Speaking to Stereogum in 2021, Marr recalled: Hans called me up late on a Saturday night. He said, "I’ve got two questions. One, should I do the Bond movie? And two, would you play guitar on it." So the first one, as a friend, I was like, “Well, yeah, I think you should Hans.” The second question, friendship had nothing to do with it. Yeah, I’m all over it. It’s funny man. The only time it ever occurred to me to play the thing from James Bond was probably when I was nine years of age and just playing guitar for the first time. Like most people playing guitar for the first time, that's the tune you try and play. Almost 50 years later, in front of an orchestra, it suddenly becomes probably the hardest guitar part you’re ever going to play. While Marr was working on the score for Bond, Zimmer asked him if he would play on a new original theme for Top Gun Maverick (2022) that he had produced for the film’s February 2022 trailer. I think there was some issue with how the theme was sounding, Marr told Variety in 2022, and I was around and I have a guitar. It really was as simple as that… I was presented with the thing and they wanted me to make it sound epic. I was like, sure, okay, I can do that! Although Marr recorded his guitar part on the Billie Eilish title song ‘No Time To Die’ with his doubleneck, he played the Comet Sparkle Jag when he performed the song with Eilish, Finneas, Zimmer and a full orchestra at the Brit Awards in London on 18 February 2020.
The Brits performance would be Marr’s last appearance with the Comet Sparkle for almost three years, as he transitioned into his Fever Dream Yellow era (lot 108) to coincide with the 2022 release of his fourth solo studio album Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. In conversation with author Martin Kelly for Marr’s Guitars, Marr explained the custom colour change: I’m not adding a new colour for commercial purposes, or to make them more collectable; it’s just part of what happens. When I feel like it’s time to have a new colour, then I’ll do it. With the most recent, Fever Dreams Yellow, I’d been touring with the Comet Sparkle for quite a long time and that guitar became synonymous with the Call the Comet tour, plus I’d played it on the theme song for the Bond film, so I thought, “It’s been three and a half years. It’s done loads of touring and then the Bond theme, so it’s time for a change.” The Fever Dreams record and tour felt like a different period in my life, so when I’m playing and I’m looking down and having this relationship with my instrument, I don’t want it to put my head back a few years. I think all guitarists are a bit like this; every few years, you want to mix it up. The difference is, though, that my signature Jag is perfection for me as an instrument. So, right now, I’m simply changing the colour.
Whilst Marr played the Fever Dream Yellow Jag for some years, he was ultimately drawn back to the Comet Sparkle in late 2023 when he performed two one-off shows with a 30-piece orchestra to inaugurate the Warehouse space at Aviva Studios in Manchester. Billed A Night with the Johnny Marr Orchestra, the two shows on 7 and 8 December 2023 celebrated ten years since the release of Marr’s solo debut with a career-spanning set. The following spring, Marr played the Comet Sparkle for the majority of the dates on his Spirit Power Tour from 2-14 April 2024 in support of his ‘best of’ album Spirit Power: The Best Of Johnny Marr. The Comet Sparkle was back in favour as Marr’s main stage guitar for a flurry of summer 2024 festival dates including the Isle of Wight Festival on 21 June, The Big Feastival on 25 August, and two co-headlining shows with The Charlatans at Forest Live and Scarborough Open Air Theatre on 28 and 29 June 2024, which saw The Charlatans’ Tim Burgess join Marr on stage to perform Electronic’s ‘Getting Away With It’.
Having sparkled on stage with Marr throughout countless live shows 2018-2024, the Comet Sparkle has joined the illustrious ranks of the Rickenbacker and Les Paul as one of Marr’s most immediately recognisable instruments and remains one of Marr’s all-time favourite guitars. When asked by Guitar World whether the Jaguar carries the same cachet as some of his older Smiths-era guitars, Marr declared: Oh, there’s no competition when it comes to that. No guitar will ever come close to the Jag because I’ve played it exclusively for years. I’ve had these moments with the Jag, like doing the [James] Bond thing with Billie Eilish, the Inception thing, and playing Glastonbury. When I had 60,000 people singing ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’ back at me… I’ll never forget that because it was so brilliant. As for the older guitars, I became famous for using those through photographs from the ’80s, and they were close to me. But nothing comes close to the journey I’ve had with the Jag. Forbes journalist Derek Scancarelli suggested in 2023 that if the apocalypse were to hit, this Comet Sparkle Jaguar is the guitar that Marr would take into a doomsday bunker. It was designed for me, responded Marr. I wouldn't change one thing. For me, it's perfection. That's the bar I've got to beat if I'm going to beat anything.
JOHNNY MARR, 2026
The sublime culmination of the four-year development and successful rollout of the Fender Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar (see footnote to lots 82 and 83), this custom Comet Sparkle Signature Jaguar has perhaps become the instrument most immediately associated with Marr in his solo era. With the intention of introducing a new custom colour concept with every album, Marr mulled it over while recording his third solo studio album Call The Comet and came up with the idea to create a yellow sparkle Jag as a tribute to Joan Didion, inspired by the iconic photographs of Didion in her yellow Corvette Stingray. Marr told us: They were making it when I got a call from Neil Whitcher at Fender saying, “we’re about to put the yellow over the sparkle but you might want to see how it looks as it’s really nice without it”. I saw a picture and thought it looked great. I knew the album was going to be “Call The Comet” and it would be my main guitar during that whole touring period, hence the name ‘Comet Sparkle’. Finished in a vintage white with silver and gold sparkle, the nitrocellulose lacquer has aged beautifully with time.
The guitar arrived with Marr in mid to late 2017 and was swiftly set up in line with his preferences for immediate use in the studio. Speaking to Premier Guitar in 2018, Marr revealed his preferred set up at this time: I find you absolutely have to have .011s on a Jag. No question on that! Guitarists that are used to playing with 010s on other guitars will find a Jag with .011s will behave in a way they understand. I personally set up my Jags so they have a little bit of fight in them. I won't say high action, but they're certainly not set up for fast shredding, and that gives it some real punch when you're playing rhythm, and some real wallop and bottom end. I have a little shim that I put in the neck that's .6 mm, and I find the neck angle is crucial on Jaguars, more so than almost any other guitar. The neck angle and the string break across the bridge really needs to be fine-tuned, but I've got it down now, between myself and my tech. It's all about string tension with them.
CALL THE COMET
Marr used his new Comet Sparkle Jag to record the Call The Comet’s lead single ‘The Tracers’, as well as the songs ‘A Different Gun’ and ‘Spiral Cities’, which would become the album’s third single. Speaking to Music Radar’s Rod Brakes about Call The Comet in 2018, Marr revealed I wanted to make a modern rock record… I just walked into this place with one song written, which was ‘Spiral Cities’, and I just fell into trying to find this feeling of contemporary rock music. Running through the record was a plea for an alternative society. I had the title [‘The Tracers’] for a while and it suggested an otherworldly kind of being, Marr told NME in 2018. The idea of the song is that the Earth is looking towards alternative intelligence to help us out from the malaise or dilemma that we may find ourselves in… I was writing ‘The Tracers’ over the period of a week or so, and this phrase ‘Call The Comet’ came from my subconscious as a kind of plea. This sounds highfalutin, but it’s a call for something to come and help us because materialism isn’t working, capitalism isn’t working, religion isn’t working, politics isn’t working. Released on 15 June 2018, the critically acclaimed Call The Comet became Marr’s third UK Top Ten album.
CALL THE COMET TOUR
The guitar was first seen in April 2018 when Marr was photographed for a cover feature in the July 2018 issue of Guitarist magazine to promote the forthcoming album. The guitar made its first appearance on stage when Marr kicked off a series of exclusive album launch shows in Europe and North America with an intimate gig at the Button Factory in Dublin on 21 May 2018. Marr played the guitar throughout the three-week launch tour, which included a show at New York’s Gramercy Theatre on 31 May, before closing in Seattle on 7 June 2018. Marr performed a short set with this guitar after he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the GQ Men of the Year Awards at The Tate Modern in London on 5 September 2018. Naturally, Marr used the Comet Sparkle almost exclusively throughout the Call The Comet Tour, which kicked off at Nashville’s Cannery Ballroom in the US on 15 September and wrapped up at EartH in London on 9 December 2018. Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder joined Marr on stage to perform The Smiths’ ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ during Marr’s show at the Ohana Festival in Dana Point, California on 28 September. Following the success of the tour, Marr returned to the US for another coast-to-coast leg, from 1-21 May 2019, before heading into a packed summer festival season across the UK and Europe that included sets at London’s All Points East on 25 May, Tramlines in Sheffield on 20 July, Rock en Seine in Paris on 23 August, and Electric Picnic near Dublin on 1 September.
GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL 2019
The highlight of the festival season was Marr’s triumphant set at Glastonbury Festival on 29 June 2019 – 35 years after he first performed there with The Smiths – which saw him treat the crowd to Smiths’ favourites ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ and ‘How Soon Is Now?’, before closing with a rousing rendition of ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ that erupted into a rapturous mass singalong as Marr’s Comet Sparkle Jag shimmered in the stage lights. Later that same evening, Marr made a legendary guest appearance on stage with The Killers to close their headline set with The Smiths’ ‘This Charming Man’ and the band’s own megahit ‘Mr. Brightside’. That was a nice moment, reflects Marr. I’d not met or played with The Killers before, so it was a matter of going into the dressing room just before they went on. I played my set with my band earlier in the day and then I went across to the Pyramid Stage – we’re all stood in a circle in the dressing room and just played ‘This Charming Man’ through, not plugged in or anything. It hadn’t really occurred to me that there was going to be like 140,000 people watching or anything, I just went “alright, here it goes!” And I had never played Mr. Brightside before, so I learnt that in the dressing room. I mean obviously I know the song, but we just ran it down once and I said “right, see you out there, have a good time”. Going into Mr. Brightside was quite a moment really, it’s a moment to remember. You know you’ve seen it on television when you look out at Glastonbury on the Saturday night from the Pyramid Stage and you see all the fires and campfires and the flags and all that… well when you’re on the stage, that’s all you can see as far as the eye can see, and Mr. Brightside’s a bit of a banger so it was fun, yeah, it was a fun moment. And it was the start of playing quite a lot on stage with The Killers because we then went on tour around America… so it was a good job I learnt the chords to Mr. Brightside.
JAMES BOND NO TIME TO DIE
In early 2020, regular collaborator Hans Zimmer asked Marr to play guitar on the score for the 25th James Bond film No Time To Die (2021). While the majority of the score was recorded with his Gibson doubleneck (next lot), Marr played Monty Norman’s famous ‘James Bond Theme’ on this guitar. Speaking to Stereogum in 2021, Marr recalled: Hans called me up late on a Saturday night. He said, "I’ve got two questions. One, should I do the Bond movie? And two, would you play guitar on it." So the first one, as a friend, I was like, “Well, yeah, I think you should Hans.” The second question, friendship had nothing to do with it. Yeah, I’m all over it. It’s funny man. The only time it ever occurred to me to play the thing from James Bond was probably when I was nine years of age and just playing guitar for the first time. Like most people playing guitar for the first time, that's the tune you try and play. Almost 50 years later, in front of an orchestra, it suddenly becomes probably the hardest guitar part you’re ever going to play. While Marr was working on the score for Bond, Zimmer asked him if he would play on a new original theme for Top Gun Maverick (2022) that he had produced for the film’s February 2022 trailer. I think there was some issue with how the theme was sounding, Marr told Variety in 2022, and I was around and I have a guitar. It really was as simple as that… I was presented with the thing and they wanted me to make it sound epic. I was like, sure, okay, I can do that! Although Marr recorded his guitar part on the Billie Eilish title song ‘No Time To Die’ with his doubleneck, he played the Comet Sparkle Jag when he performed the song with Eilish, Finneas, Zimmer and a full orchestra at the Brit Awards in London on 18 February 2020.
The Brits performance would be Marr’s last appearance with the Comet Sparkle for almost three years, as he transitioned into his Fever Dream Yellow era (lot 108) to coincide with the 2022 release of his fourth solo studio album Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. In conversation with author Martin Kelly for Marr’s Guitars, Marr explained the custom colour change: I’m not adding a new colour for commercial purposes, or to make them more collectable; it’s just part of what happens. When I feel like it’s time to have a new colour, then I’ll do it. With the most recent, Fever Dreams Yellow, I’d been touring with the Comet Sparkle for quite a long time and that guitar became synonymous with the Call the Comet tour, plus I’d played it on the theme song for the Bond film, so I thought, “It’s been three and a half years. It’s done loads of touring and then the Bond theme, so it’s time for a change.” The Fever Dreams record and tour felt like a different period in my life, so when I’m playing and I’m looking down and having this relationship with my instrument, I don’t want it to put my head back a few years. I think all guitarists are a bit like this; every few years, you want to mix it up. The difference is, though, that my signature Jag is perfection for me as an instrument. So, right now, I’m simply changing the colour.
Whilst Marr played the Fever Dream Yellow Jag for some years, he was ultimately drawn back to the Comet Sparkle in late 2023 when he performed two one-off shows with a 30-piece orchestra to inaugurate the Warehouse space at Aviva Studios in Manchester. Billed A Night with the Johnny Marr Orchestra, the two shows on 7 and 8 December 2023 celebrated ten years since the release of Marr’s solo debut with a career-spanning set. The following spring, Marr played the Comet Sparkle for the majority of the dates on his Spirit Power Tour from 2-14 April 2024 in support of his ‘best of’ album Spirit Power: The Best Of Johnny Marr. The Comet Sparkle was back in favour as Marr’s main stage guitar for a flurry of summer 2024 festival dates including the Isle of Wight Festival on 21 June, The Big Feastival on 25 August, and two co-headlining shows with The Charlatans at Forest Live and Scarborough Open Air Theatre on 28 and 29 June 2024, which saw The Charlatans’ Tim Burgess join Marr on stage to perform Electronic’s ‘Getting Away With It’.
Having sparkled on stage with Marr throughout countless live shows 2018-2024, the Comet Sparkle has joined the illustrious ranks of the Rickenbacker and Les Paul as one of Marr’s most immediately recognisable instruments and remains one of Marr’s all-time favourite guitars. When asked by Guitar World whether the Jaguar carries the same cachet as some of his older Smiths-era guitars, Marr declared: Oh, there’s no competition when it comes to that. No guitar will ever come close to the Jag because I’ve played it exclusively for years. I’ve had these moments with the Jag, like doing the [James] Bond thing with Billie Eilish, the Inception thing, and playing Glastonbury. When I had 60,000 people singing ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’ back at me… I’ll never forget that because it was so brilliant. As for the older guitars, I became famous for using those through photographs from the ’80s, and they were close to me. But nothing comes close to the journey I’ve had with the Jag. Forbes journalist Derek Scancarelli suggested in 2023 that if the apocalypse were to hit, this Comet Sparkle Jaguar is the guitar that Marr would take into a doomsday bunker. It was designed for me, responded Marr. I wouldn't change one thing. For me, it's perfection. That's the bar I've got to beat if I'm going to beat anything.