Squier Bullet Stratocaster

The Squire Bullet Stratocaster is Mike Rutherford's current guitar of choice, using it on Genesis' The Last Domino? tour of 2021-2022.

According to guitar tech Steve Prior, Rutherford had bought two Indonesian-made Squire Bullet Stratocasters at a guitar shop in Cape Town, South Africa on a visit - one with a Sonic Grey limited edition finish, another with Artic White. This was during the Covid-19 lockdown, when Mike had forgotten to bring his Fender Eric Clapton Signature Stratocaster black guitar over. It was for most of the lockdown that he ended up falling in love with the new Bullet Stratocasters and was relearning the old Genesis songs on the guitar.

Specification
Mike Rutherford's Sonic Grey Squire Bullet Stratocaster is described as follows in Guitar Player: "'a polyurethane-finished poplar body and 25.5 inch scale ‘C’-profile maple neck with a 9.5 inch radius, 21-fret Laurel fingerboard. Three Standard Single-Coil Strat pickups along with a 6-Saddle Vintage-Style Synchronized Tremolo means the guitar stays close to Fender’s original 1954 design.'"

The guitar is super lightweight, but Prior had modified the guitar to make it more reliable and fit for touring by adding Gotoh tuners and changing the bridge/saddles. Which meant re-cutting the nut and he also dressed the frets. Fender Noiseless bridge pickups were installed alongside the stock ones in case the guitar gets any interaction with the 70' LCD screen.

Quotes on the Squier Bullet Series Stratocaster
Steve Prior on the beginnings of Mike's relationship with the guitar: "'Sitting at home in Cape Town plugged into his Blackstar 3-watt amp, Mike just fell in love with it playing along to his laptop and relearning all the Genesis songs. That was him for almost all of the first lockdown because he wasn’t allowed out of Cape Town. He was stuck there. But he came back saying how much he loved this guitar.'" "'Mike has got so many other wonderful Strats, but he also loves using these Indonesian-made Squier Bullet Stratocasters. He can’t put the Sonic Grey one down. It’s the first guitar he wants to play every day and he uses it for some big songs in the Genesis set including “No Son of Mine” and “Mama.”'"