Squier Gets Weird Again: Meet the New Paranormal Series

The Squier Paranormal Series has always been a little different.

Instead of just building more affordable versions of familiar Fender guitars, Squier digs through Fender history, grabs parts and ideas from different models, and starts mixing them together. Some are pretty subtle. Others make you wonder why nobody tried them before.

The latest Paranormal lineup brings five more into the mix, including a baritone Jazzmaster, a semi-hollow Precision Bass, a Bigsby-equipped Tele Deluxe and one very strange six-string.

Here’s what just showed up.

Squier Paranormal Electric VI

The Paranormal Electric VI might be the weirdest one of the bunch, and we mean that as a compliment.

Squier starts with the body shape of the old Fender Electric XII, adds a Coronado-style headstock and turns it into a six-string guitar with a 24.75" scale length.

It also has a pair of Fender-Designed alnico split-coil pickups with individual on/off switches, plus series/parallel and phase switching. There are a lot of sounds hiding in this thing.

It looks like something Fender could have built in 1967 but somehow never did. That's pretty much Paranormal in a nutshell.

Squier Paranormal Stratocaster Deluxe

The Stratocaster Deluxe takes a regular Strat and messes with the recipe.

There’s a Fender-Designed alnico Telecaster single-coil in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge, with a push/pull tone control to split the humbucker when you want a single-coil sound.

You still get the familiar Strat body, vintage-style tremolo and three-way blade switch, but Squier adds the big ’70s Strat headstock and skirted amp-style knobs to give it a different look.

Of the five new models, this is probably the easiest one to understand. It’s a Strat with a pickup combination you normally wouldn't find on a Strat, and there’s a ton you can do with it.

Squier Paranormal Troublemaker Telecaster Deluxe Bigsby

There’s nothing particularly subtle about this one.

The Troublemaker Telecaster Deluxe Bigsby gets a bound Tele body, bound fingerboard, pearloid block inlays, dual Fender-Designed alnico humbuckers and a B50 Bigsby vibrato.

Each pickup has its own volume and tone controls, and both tone controls are push/pull switches that split their respective humbuckers. You can run both pickups as humbuckers, both as single coils or mix them.

Throw in the Adjust-O-Matic bridge and Bigsby and this thing is pretty far removed from your standard Telecaster.

Which is exactly why we like it.

Squier Paranormal Baritone Jazzmaster HH

This one is going to get some attention from the heavier crowd.

The Paranormal Baritone Jazzmaster HH takes the Jazzmaster shape, stretches the scale length to 27" and sets it up for B-to-B tuning.

Squier skips the traditional Jazzmaster pickups and tremolo entirely. Instead, you get two Fender-Designed alnico humbuckers, a three-way toggle, master volume, master tone, an Adjust-O-Matic bridge and a stopbar tailpiece.

It’s simple, heavy and built around lower tunings.

If you’ve been wanting to get into baritone guitar without spending a fortune — or you just want something completely different sitting next to your regular six-string — this one makes a lot of sense.

Squier Paranormal Precision Bass Thinline SJ

Then there’s the Precision Bass Thinline SJ.

Squier takes the early ’51-style Precision Bass body and makes it semi-hollow, complete with an F-hole. Already pretty cool.

For pickups, there’s a Fender-Designed alnico ’51 P Bass single-coil paired with a Jazz Bass single-coil at the bridge. A three-way blade lets you use either pickup individually or both together.

So you've got some early P-Bass DNA, some Jazz Bass DNA and a semi-hollow body all packed into the same bass.

It shouldn’t look as natural as it does, but somehow it works.

This Is What the Paranormal Series Should Be

There are plenty of places to go if you want a traditional Strat, Tele, Jazzmaster or Precision Bass. That’s not really what the Paranormal Series is for.

These are for players who see a Jazzmaster and immediately want to tune it down and see what happens. Or the person who has always wondered what a semi-hollow ’51 P-Bass would be like. Or somebody who looks at a Tele Deluxe and thinks, “Yeah, but put a Bigsby on it.”

That’s what makes this series fun.

The newest Squier Paranormal models are arriving now at Detroit Guitar. Check out our current Squier inventory online, or stop into the shop and try one out.