Best pickups for a tele?

Question

I am about to buy myself a tele and I don't believe I want to stick with the standard pickups. I'm going for the standard lefty tele (it can be found on musiciansfriend.com for 399 if you wanna take a look at it.) and I'd just like a few suggestions on pickups that would sound great in it. I play a lot of different styles but mainly punk, rockabilly, surf and old country. I'm looking for that WOW! sound. My other guitar of choice is the les paul, which I have been playing since I was a kid. But I love teles just as much and I'm looking for the best pickups for my style of music.

Answer 1

Teles are not designed for that kind of music, more or less for blues and country, the good ones come with covered lace pickups.  To change the sound dramatically you have a couple pickup options and a few more is you know someone who is good with wood.  For punk there is little better choices then Gibson P-90s but P-90s are sought after and pretty expensive, they would also require some pick guard and wood modding.  Seymour Duncan makes a pickup set called Hot Rails that is a high output pickup specifically and can be ordered/bought specifically for the tele.  Remember you will need a pretty hot iron to do the soldering and take your time so as not to make cold joints which is the root of most electrical repairs.