 Okay, here we are another episode of the Grail. It will be a guitar episode. It'll be a music equipment episode. It'll probably be a Bay Area type of episode. And I really try to steer clear of doing the guitar ones just because I had Grover Jackson on on the first episode and then that was it everybody's like, oh man, do this guy and that guy like it was. It wasn't a guitar podcast. And I didn't get mad about it. But after a while it got a little annoying because there's so many amazing people out in the world that I'd like to feature on the Grail that build stuff by hand and work outside the box. But when I was pitched you from our buddy Adam there from the pint lounge. But of course, I started looking over the, the PDF that he sent me. I was like, oh, I got to have this guy on, you know, it's just because what I'm reading in this PDF. I was like, I've been there the entire time. And there's so many, you know, so much so much to talk about so introduce yourself. Yeah, hi, so I'm Rich Lassner. I'm the vice president development for Vox guitars right now been there for 17 years which is a frightening thing to say I don't think I've ever been in one place longer than five minutes. But yeah, I've been doing it for a long time with these guys background is I was a musician for a really long time part of the volunteer poor. And I learned how to build guitars by doing and watching and kind of balance the building things and playing music it was a really interesting experience because unlike some guys I was out there for years on the road and went through tons and tons of guitars and it really helped me kind of focus on, you know, what What do they want, because a lot of people say like a guitar is like a car cars have four wheels and a steering wheel but new ones come out every year, people are often amazed you have to quote design guitars. I think they think it was all done in the late, you know late 40s early 50s and some ways they're right. The archetypes do come from them but there's more to do. Did you grow up in Marin or the Bay Area is that what we're talking about. Now the ocean was on the other side man I'm from Atlantic City, New Jersey. Oh, wow. Oh, you were. Yeah, I was doing the casino there with Burr. Oh, yeah. Yeah, hard rock. I saw a clip of that man yeah I escaped from there way before that all that stuff happened. But it's a really weird place to be from because I grew up when it had already crashed and burned before the casinos came in and there was virtually nowhere to play. There were tons of really talented musicians there. So we would just like rent a school gymnasium and go crazy you know bands would play all night and it really honed my skills and also I was that guy that when you brought me your melody maker when it like the neck wasn't right you know I go I'll fix it. I had no idea, dude, but they trusted me anyway and over time I learned how to fix without breaking, which was a pretty fun period of time back. I don't know how old you are I'm 57 but how old are you. I'm turned 68 two days ago. Hey, man. It just it's all got to do with when your parents decided they were going to have a kid so I got no control over that but yeah I mean, but music make is sort of timeless. There's a lot of guys in my age group your age group that are still out there really doing it Christ I mean the stones are still touring right so. You know, up where I am we've got Bob we're in Phil lash and all the people connected to the dead right yeah they're like, they're not kids anymore but they still have something to say. I just saw him last week, the last show. And I've seen dead and co about 15 times. And, you know, when I watched dead and co, the amount of Bay Area that just pours over me the memories of this from hating the dead to loving them, but everything about that show the last show at the. And I call it pack bell, and it always. It's amazing to think about everything I'm looking at up there, and we can really get into equipment from john mayors jumbles, and, and then of course, Bobby with his years of Olympics and fill with Olympics and back with Randall and boogie and this just this history of Bay Area and Bay Area equipment, you know and it's really wild to think about how Randall Smith is probably, and I could be wrong on this but I'm pretty knowledgeable on amps, could be the first boutique amp company, you know, because you don't have an amp bag and fender. Now, absolutely. I mean, the first time I you know I saw Santana clip from Woodstock. Right and there's a little Princeton sitting up there but it ain't a Princeton. That's where Randy secret sauce was you know and you've got all those guys back from prune music and mill valley. Yeah, Mike Bloomfield teaching guitar Carlos Santana. Randy. I mean, it was crazy as seen in this little tiny town. And it's still there, you know, like, you know, I love the mill valley when I first got here I came from Mississippi I worked for PV, not from there but spent some good years there. I got there and people are like, Oh, you see that music store right there man. That's where my blue field used to hang out. It's like that kind of energy. The area is really a special place. I mean, as a kid I used to grab from these coasts right so I used to grab like it's a beautiful day albums or Moby grape. You know, later ynt like all these area bands that are just killing that broke out. You know, some of those bands got had a hit or two and the other parts of the states but when I got here the stuff that's in the ground. And like, I got out here because I was going to run modulus guitars the carbon fiber neck company. That was fucking Bobby played modulus he had the pink one. And Bobby was part of the company when I got here and we were across diagonally from the secret dead building that I will not talk about but everybody knows where it is. Anyway, he and Phil would just wonder over. You know, I'd walk back to my office and there's Bob one of my guitars gone. That's pretty cool. Can I borrow this is like yes. Anytime it but yeah, I mean the gravity you're talking about it's like every place is special I grew up near New York City and all that stuff and there's a whole rich history there. But this was always the exotic place. When I was a kid that you look to for that what was changing. What was new. Yeah, even apps Randy Smith guitars olympic I mean it all these great builders there's all this little japanas workshop stuff going on here to this day. That olympic stuff and Randy you know I mean there's even a famous. I know Gibson just bought it, which was Keith Richards bogey that he used on tattoo you record you know the classic wicker front with the five band graphic. And you know I was around the factory a lot back then because my guitar player Steve McDonald work there and and Doug West and all the guys and, you know, and Randy would be there and it was just wild here we are in the room and they're busting out these amps and then eventually they go from like Santana and hippies of dead and stuff into Metallica with the double rectifiers and triple wreck right. And it just becomes like, wait a minute now boogie is the sound of thrash it's it's yeah the history in the Bay Area is fucking amazing and I can't even tell you how happy I am that I grew up there. It's just in me you know, now it's it's really it's the secret sauce of the West Coast in terms of amps and guitars. And let's face it the level of players up here is just ridiculous. Every, every day I run across somebody I never heard of this playing in like the no name bar in Sausalito or something you're like, holy hell, who is this person, how did they get to this level there's always new kinds of music coming out here. And then Fred stuff that came from here right. Yeah, that was I remember going to the Luthiers forums like 15 years ago, and seeing these guys going, No, this is new man this is going to work this is going to happen people are going to use this. Everybody's like that's too weird. And now it's everywhere. So, you know, like I was really happening during the time of like the, the, all the speed players, the vice, the satriani is the Paul Gilbert's all, you know, all those guys I was right in there in that period. And I kept wondering what's going to come after what's going to change where the guitar is going to go, because those things still all work. But the reality is they've kind of become classics, like a Vi Jim or an Ivan is RG or an ESP guitar. It's like, everybody knows what that is. It's a classic but then I start to see these guys like tossing a bossy guys coming up with like fan fret eight strings, and actually really getting new music out of them. You know, and I'm hearing all these crazy like thrash guys in Europe using eight string fan fret guitars, because they can get the kind of like dark bottom and that that's the only thing that'll do it so it's really cool that things are still evolving. You and I, I have a deep, deep long past friendship with Mike Varney. And yeah, so I used to fucking mow his lawn and, and paint his fucking house and It's construction is house and, and we became long lifelong friends he's been on the podcast and it was easy to think about, you know, you've got your classic players of the 60s you got your Clapton Jimmy page. You know, the Pete Townsend's the Peter Greens. Oh, we know. Yeah. Then you get into the 70s, and then you get into kind of Eddie Van Halen, and then of course Randy Rhodes, and then you get in shrapnel. And then the, the, that's when we first hear of the sweet picking of Inge and then Paul Gilbert racer X. All those guys Steve by Greg how it goes on and on and on. But when you really think about it. There is only I was talking about it there's only like five waves of guitars you got the less Paul the 59. Classic. You got the SG classic. You got the strat and the telly classic, and then comes along Charvel unbelievable, you know, but in the middle, you got the Ivan as lawsuit era, which my buddy still has his strat. And they made the, yeah, he still has it white strat. Oh yeah. And then, you know, the one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you was 1977 ish, I walk into a music store and Fresno, and there they are to Ivan as you have the George Benson. You got the abalone and then you've got the ice man. And this is kind of when they get off of the lawsuit era and start doing their own shit let's talk a little bit about that now were you working at Ivan as I got there in the early to mid 80s. Right after that I was working retail in a big store in Philadelphia, and they were right above Philadelphia and I actually didn't know that at the time anyway. I start that was a time period where the quality offender and Gibson was pretty poor. They're really expensive. Over a grand at a time when that was real money. They weren't made real well they didn't sound or feel great. And I started to realize that some of the Ivanist stuff that we had there like the artist guitars that were like double cut away less pause. We're killing the quality was unbelievable. So, I go to work there, and they're having trouble they're struggling with trying to get people to believe that they can do original designs that are cool because before it was when I work retail is kind of easy to pick up an Ivanist copy and an American strat at the time, and the quality of the Japanese one was obviously better played better felt better cost a whole lot less. So, I knew these guys could do it. But when I got there they were suffering from the like we don't want any of the original stuff because we're not sure your stuffs legit. So, I was originally hired as a guy I was a music teacher and a repair guy. So, they pulled me in for the interview and there's like eight dower looking Japanese guys and one American guy named bill run who's still one of my best friends who look like Billy idle at the time. And he's got his arms crosses where I'm black. And they're looking at me and the owner of the company goes play like Jeff Beck play like George Benson play like Jimi Hendrix play like Peter Green, and I get like five seconds of anything because I'm a guitar teacher right. So I hit it but they're like thank you and I go home and my wife says, What do you think I said I'm screwed man. They were like didn't move them. Let me stop it for a minute. What is the interview for to work at Ivan as is what an artist development or guitar development new designs what is it. No it's really basic they wanted somebody I had sold a bunch of their guitars, and I knew the rap heat you know he was telling them. This guy can get it across that the guitars were making or good let's put them on the road. He can play anything for five minutes, and he can convince people these things are real because he can make them work. So I signed up for that. And about four months into it. They're trying to figure out they have a great designer this guy for its cat who I almost everything to have how to make production guitars. Anyway, they start asking me questions like, Well, what would you do, like what kind of guitar would you play. Okay, let's think about this. So I just started checking in with all the people I knew and just checking myself and thinking like people are looking for fast next Charvel and Jackson are killing it you know they they're going in that direction. I think we could live there. You know, but I realized here was my key thing. There is no Mr Ivan is. Okay. Gibson's a guy's name fender is a guy's name Charvel is a guy's name. There's no Mr Ivan has had a personify a brand that has no face artists. So I was in the spotlight column, Mike Varney called me one night about two o'clock in the morning at Philly time and says, Hey man I'm putting you in the spotlight column like great who are you. Yeah, don't you remember you said he gets that tape. I was playing fusion style stuff but it was like a million miles an hour I was getting paid by the note right now type of stuff but fast. Yeah, like McLaughlin Dmiola holds worthy and kind of stuff you know and I didn't know any better I didn't realize it was really hard to make money doing that. So anyway, it caught Mike's, you know, ear because he could hear the technique and at the time that was the Paul Gilbert, you know by era so he's like I don't know what it is you're trying to say exactly but man you can do it so I'm putting you in the column. Anyway, the point of that is, when I come to this big, you know, realization that there is no Mr Ivan is and that's a big part of the problem. It's like Varney calls me on the phone and says, Hey rich man. I know you got this gig at Ivan is now and I know you're doing a little artist relations but none of the big boys will play with Mike guys because they think the music's not valid. You know, instrumental guitar music back then. Satriani hadn't hit yet. And he was the first guy after Jeff back in blow by blow that actually made money off of an album with no vocals. Yeah, sir. Alien you know it was like, dude, couldn't believe it got on the radio. Neither could Joe but anyway, Mark and Mike says there is Mark Varney that's his brother of course but Mike, Mike says to me, if you can help my guys. If you can get real guitars, legit guitars that would be massive and I thought this is the dude that put me in the magazine. You know, that I got some notoriety from that and I thought yeah man I can help you. So we signed Vinnie Moore Paul Gilbert. You know Satriani came through by a ton of those guys and it created the who's Mr Ivan is well these guys are Mr Ivan is. It was really cool. Plus they gave me a million ideas. These guys were all virtuoso players. So it's like, you know dude if the neck felt a little bit more like this or you know that you rounded the finger board and the frets were like this. So that's how, with all that input from all those guys to me being a player. We created, and it's a group of people right you don't never do anything by yourself like that. But the group of us put together what I've been as was and luckily we hit the wave, we nailed the wave. Did you, is this your first gig outside of playing music did you, other than a guitar store and stuff. I've been as working at a company. And the reality is like, I was like, like a handful of the American guys who work there. If I had been anywhere else, I would have been to see a people and it'd be really hard for me to like come up. But there, they looked at the American dudes is like really creative but hard to manage. Right, because we were always tripping on what would be cool and who would be a great player or like a really neat thing. They're pretty conservative, especially at the time they're like, slow down man, slow down. You can't slow down this wave is now. And they went for it. One of my bosses at the time literally took me to lunch and said, I have no idea what you guys are doing, but it works. So I'm going to stay out of your way. And the only time you'll hear from me is if you screw up. That's huge. I'll tell you what, man. I've been as is such a fucking big deal in the guitar world and still not talk about enough. Let's talk a little bit about it. I mean, you know, who was one of the biggest I've been as players and a lot of people don't talk about it is Adrian Smith the Byron Maiden with the show. Absolutely. That fucking destroyer to was a masterpiece of a guitar and this guy's playing on the number the beast tour at the highest fucking level of arenas. And he really other than Paul Stanley is the first arena rocker to be out there playing fucking Ibanez man it's wild. Oh, yeah. And then followed by Phil Collins from Jeff Lepper 100% man there he is his day photograph the three pickup model with the fucking with the killer. Yeah, the killer on there you know and yeah, and it was deluxe with the Ivan with the with the abalone around the edges you know. Let's talk what about when you go to Ivan as because my early, you know, intro to Ivan as is like I said I'm in this music store there's the George Benson I'm like God damn that guitar sick. And I'm fucking, I'm in the real Ted Nugent at the time, right, who's playing Berlin so I'm like this is better than a Berlin look it's all abalone it up it's got a cool rubber toggle switch and yeah, but the ice man was the history of the ice man is really bizarre. There was some really ugly wood ones with the one pickup in the weird bridge. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and but then Paul. And also, what people don't talk about is Bob from Divo was playing the blue. Yeah. Yeah. So, who invented the ice man and how does that happen. Yeah, there are two guys before my time one is Jeff Hasselberger he was the American guy that was like the think tank dude, he was over artists relations advertising and coming up with new ideas. He cracked the mirror and glued it on the original Paul Stanley guitar. He's the guy and in Japan Fritz Kato was a designer and he's just some dude who grew up on an island far down in the south it just had stupid amounts of talent. He came up with the ice man and the destroyer basically looking at like what can you do to an explorer right that would be different and hip. And he took that on one of the guitars with Rick and back are cresting wave horn stuck it on the other side. Yeah, it's really sick stuff man. So he's the reason he and Jeff Hasselberger Hasselberger brought George Benson in. He brought all he brought Paul Stanley, he was my precursor the guy right before me. So he left me this like bed of really cool shit that he had already done with Fritz. Fritz is just this guy that has a million ideas. You know, he was the dude that pulled them out. He, he made all the copy guitars too because he would he they had real ones. They showed me something they thought was a real modern. Wow, is there really this like, yeah, I see this huge old Brown Gibson case stuck in this warehouse. And I look at Fritz and I'm like dude, is that you an explorer is that a 58 what do you got in there and he just laughs and he goes, it's probably not real but and I pull it out and it is sick as shit. It's just unbelievable. And he's he's like, we don't talk about this right, because they they released one if you remember they did like the work. They did the explorer the flying the and the modern before Gibson even came out with one. I got an original ad with it all three. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I saw the guitar that they bought for some insane amount of money that they kept hidden in the office in Japan, because they were all about it but it's both Fritz and Hasselberger did all the crazy stuff before me that you're talking about. Now, Gibson of course is notorious even right now they're going after all kinds of builders and all kinds of patents and lawsuits and all that stuff. What was the history of Ibanez because of course Japan and China they just bootleg anything and they never get in trouble. How serious because we all call the Ibanez the earlier the lawsuit eras. And how did that, were you around did you I mean you weren't around them but did you hear like, like, did Gibson just come in and go and fender like cease and then they had to start all over like what happens. Well, it's really interesting. I, you know, I was working retail when that happened. And all I knew at the time is like, we stopped being able to get their copies. So we started bringing in like Tokai and Fernandez who were still doing it until I forget one of them got all their headstocks cut off at the at the dock. Because you know they had they had gone over the line with Fender and Fender wasn't having it. But honestly, inside Ibanez by the time I got there that wave was gone. They weren't thinking about it anymore because they were in enough trouble trying to sell things that like people weren't going for yet. You know, because the original stuff that they were making before they really landed on the RGs and the gems and all that stuff. It was kind of half baked compared to like the real stuff like Charvel and Jackson that was coming out like those guys were focused and making real American made stuff that kicked ass. And I've been as quality was always good but like the features didn't really fly over here. That's when they started hiring people like me and this guy Bill Rime and Bill Kamisky who worked with me, Bill Kamisky ended up doing like 22 to 24 years as the VP of senior VP of Artists Relations at Fender. Wow. So we, we had quite a crew man and we were all in this together, but we just we realized it's like the stuff the stuff's good but it's not kicking ass the way it needs to and part of it is like it just looks and feels and smells wrong. Now, was there, of course, I live a few blocks from performance guitars where the original Jim was made. And they're fucking still open man. I know. I walk by them on the way to the gym and it's just then I'm like, one day I looked I go, hey that's fucking performance guitar they made the Steve by flames. Jim, the early Jim with the absurdly bigger cutaway and stuff. But at what point do you get like Steve by in there and start working on the Jim with the handle. Well this is really interesting because the guitars you're talking about with the flame body and the super crazy cutaway. They're actually from a guy named Joe to spagny from Long Island, who grew up with Steve. So, I meet Steve, and he comes out and like every company in the world's sucking up to him and trying to, you know, get him to do their stuff. And actually Kramer was after him and from what I know blew it because he told me Steve told me this years ago. They said to him, isn't it going to be great when you and Eddie are together and all the ads and we send out you and Eddie and he's like it ain't me and Eddie. Yeah, he had his own mentality is a really smart dude and he knew that shadow, no matter how big Steve shadow gets is still a shadow. Yeah, so he was more interested in other people stuff. So, we flew out to his house and from Philly and just said, what do you want exactly what would it take and we're not talking money we're talking guitars. Right. And I always came from it's like if I can't make you a guitar that you wake up at three o'clock in the morning, pull it out from under your bed and grin your ass off. I'm not doing my job. So, Steve's like, Oh, okay, somebody's asking me what I want, because all these companies have made stuff for him and just throwing it at him. And I'm sure not everybody did that but that's how he felt he's like you know you want something for me. You don't want to do anything for me. My attitude as a player was, what do you want to play like the Jordan speaker. What, what do you want. What's the exact. Exactly. It was like that it's like, we're not saying we'll do this you're going to do this we're like bring it bring it to us. So he sends me a couple of the performance guitars a couple of Tom Anderson's one of one of the the Green Charvels with the huge bandsaw cut away in it that eventually cracked all the way through. And there were there weren't post it notes yet but he took little pieces of paper and wrote on it. Fret's like this neck shape like this neck joint this way headstock that way so there were like 20 different parameters. And we just sat there, there's a throat through your four of us and just went. Okay, let's Frankenstein this thing and make something for Steve and see what the hell comes out. Did he have the handle. Did he have the handle on the idea. Yeah, there was a Tom Anderson or performance guitar it wasn't a monkey grip yet it didn't have a little bumps in it right it was smooth. It looked like a hot dog. Right, look, you've seen this right look like a hot dog. So, you know, and he wanted to top four or five or six Fred scallop like Billy Sheehan's basis, which is where he saw that. So, you know, and Steve smart and he's tough and he won't do something he doesn't want to do there's no he doesn't have to right that's really awesome. But so we made a couple of these things. And then Philly and Ben Salem which is just north and I flew him out with another guy that Steve's house first thing he does cuts the strings off takes screwdriver takes the thing down the last nothing bolt. I'm there trying to keep my mouth like off the floor going oh crap. He wanted to see what kind of job we did for him. Wow. Which was fucking cool man. I mean this is a guy that kind of stuff that he wants. He wants to know if we like clued all the holes underneath and just jam the pickups in it or if we like took our time and really cared about it. Luckily, we had done the job. So, he pulls everything apart and puts it back together and goes, let's talk. Oh, shit, because I'm trying to recover from the near stroke I just had trying to smile while he's ripping this thing apart. Now in the day that we brought the item and smile era right. Yes, it's after flexible. It's after his own little. Yeah, he was still living in this little tiny house and see me Valley right now with this girlfriend who turns his wife for years now anyway. So, you know, the other thing that was interesting that I should add to this is every guitar company on earth was crawling up his butt right because Steve Vine he was coming he was coming on hard. So, I read in Guitar World magazine, about two or three months before Christmas that year which must have been like 85 maybe that a whole locker full of his guitars and a road case for the raw thing got stolen out of s i r in the valley. Yeah, yeah, all the shit right. Everything. And he got back recently. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did so anyway it was just misplaced but anyway the point was up in an attic at somebody's house, something screwed up like that so anyway, I find out his parents phone number, I don't even know how, and I call as a mama. And I say, look, I'm from a guitar company. Yes, they're all crawling all over your son. But here's the deal. I want to make him a guitar for Christmas and all I want is to know if you will put it under the tree and just say it's from us. Well, that's it. So all these other guitar companies were trying to like take them out and limousines and wine and dynamite. They're solid the earth people. They're blue collar. They don't go for that shit. They don't go for that shit when they're being brown nose. So she said, that's all you want. And I said, Well, really, I want them to like us. But the reality is, if he just goes while that's cool and I never hear from him. That's it. I don't want anything else. They put it under the god damn Christmas tree. And I that's the first call I get it's like, okay, what do you want. Wow, wow, we broke, we broke the ice there. Are you responsible for getting an ice man into the divo camp? That was before me. Yeah. God, we crazy man to see that. Well, we did make a couple of these like weird blue cloud. Oh, I love those cloud ones. Yeah, we did at least two of those when I was there and it was cool. We gave them the mark mother spot and it was just really like some people didn't get diva. I can't understand. They were like, they were so cool and everybody actually thought they were really nerdy and weird. It's like, dude, they cut themselves away from everybody else. They were just diva. It was brilliant. Right. So when they said, Oh, this guy wants us to make some kind of cloud guitar. They thought I was going to ball because they weren't like million mile an hour players. I'm like, sweet. Let's do it. We made a couple of the cloud guitars for him. And it was really fun. You know, they were selling those about a year ago. Somebody started making them for diva and you could buy them on the website like that design. Not surprised. I mean, it was really unique and bizarre and it just fit with how cool they were. Well, that was during their worth through being cool era, you know. And they come back, they come out with that guitar and I'm just like, whoa, what is that thing? They're on the fucking conveyor belt. We're being cool. Awesome. Just awesome. But like that was a real sidebar there. And we also had guys like simple minds. Oh, yeah. You know, like we got, I, I, I teched it live aid, which was just fucking unbelievable. Yeah, we were, you know, they staged live aids rehearsals in our warehouse at Ivan is because we had to square footage to like have Led Zeppelin practice there have run DMC run their set there. And you know, we had police outside because people figured it out and it was unreal. So the day of the show I get there at 630 in the morning. There's not a car on the street. I turn around 45 minutes later and open the curtain. There's 200,000 people is awesome. Right next to me, Seymour Duncan, who I grew up around in South Jersey. Seymour is teching. I'm teching. There's Jack Nicholson talking to Eric Clapton, you know. No fucking attitude. The only attitude is Sean Penn shows up with Madonna and all her strong guys are shoving us out of the way. We're just laughing. We had a really great players. They left their ego at the door. There was no ego there. You know, Phil Collins comes in on the fucking Concord. He plays drums in the UK and then he plays drums with Zeppelin. It was like just insane. But we got to do that because we staged them the night before we had every band that was unbelievable. At any point while you were there, of course, we were talking about now the behemoth of Kramer starts to happen with the Brett, Eddie Van Halen, Leaves, Charvel, or he wasn't really with Charvel. And yeah, they had the Kramer Ripley where each was a stereo pickup and all of that shit. At any time, did you go after Eddie? Well, you know, it's really interesting because, you know, we were in Philly and they were in Jersey. So it was like this cross state kind of thing. We were fighting each other. And we didn't really know each other at the time. It's weird. Later on, I got to know all the guys there, but it was just like at that time they were just the enemy. But what happened, they didn't really try to go after Eddie. But what happened was when Floyd Rose came up with the locking vibrato. It shoved everybody else into the weeds because they had an exclusive and we couldn't touch it, right? So unfortunately for them, they decided to license it. And we actually, at Ibanez, they told us we designed a better Floyd Rose than they had. But the problem was, and Floyd told me years later, what a nice guy that man is seriously, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. But he said, you know, the problem, the worst thing we ever did is license it to Ibanez, because then they were able to kill. Yeah. Like, can you imagine if we went to Vyre's Satchariya and said, oh yeah, you can have this guitar, but we can't put a Floyd Rose on it. It would have been C.L.A. later. Totally. They had that advantage for a while, right? Kramer had it for a while. What was that terrible tremolo you guys had before they floored? All of them. I didn't knock the Kramer man. I liked Kramer a lot because, you know, that the early Floyd you couldn't do a pull up on, you know, and Kramer had the fine tuners, which Floyd didn't have yet. But first Floyd, you had to fucking Allen wrench down the fucking strings, and then if it was out of tune, you had to undo, oh, it was a nightmare, but the idea was amazing, you know. Well, I was a repair guy at the time that the non fine tuner once hit. And you know, you had to get a guy in a band that had a tech and had at least one other guitar because you're going to break a string or it's going to go out of tune and you were screwed. There's a German company that made one with fine tuners before the Floyd Rose. And Kramer was using that for a while. I can't remember those guys went nuts and started sewing Kramer when they started using the Floyd, but the Floyd was actually a better piece. But we knew we were dead if we couldn't license it. And luckily, we made a great deal with those guys. But as I said, Floyd years later said to me, you know what, man, if we had not licensed it, I'd probably be sitting on top of my own mountain today. And, you know, it was rough, but what a great invention really, it guys like Vine Saturiani wouldn't exist at the level they do if they didn't have the expression of that. Though I want to agree with you for a second. Can I talk about the killer for a second. Yeah, I think the I think the killer got a bum rap. I really do. Paul Gilbert when he first came then we were putting callers on his guitars, because you can set those suckers to go up to the moon and come right back in tune and Paul had that nail. They got this weird image that the saddles weren't connected to the base real well and like the Floyd was screwed down and people started saying you're losing tone. Some of those guys can make that thing sing. And I know guys today that will buy up the original ones for a shitload of money to put them on their guitars, because they have a range and a feel that you can't get out of anything else. Yeah, I really liked them and you didn't have to go all the way through the guitar, you know, just to the surface. And it's funny when you think about Floyd and Kailers because then you start getting into the Brad Gillis type of like that. You know that all the tricks that were happening with the, the better tremolos it's really wild man to think about Eddie Hale on the first record is basically using a strat style. And being able, that's the finesse and feel that he had of being able to keep it in tune man, you know, they go like, oh yeah Eddie started all you know all of that stuff but I mean Hendricks was doing it and everything but. Oh yeah, what he did was, as soon as he did a dive bomb he could hit a fucking open Ian it would still be there. Yeah, yeah he was, he was amazing I dealt with him a bunch of times at different companies, the natural talent in that guy. I mean we all know that that's nothing new. But like, you know, I hadn't met him and he was a Kramer so he was the enemy. Right when I was a kid. It's like I'm an Ivan is you know we're going to beat you up and it's like so eventually when I got out of that and he got out all that crap. You know he used to come in the line six all the time because he didn't live far from where we were in the valley. I worked there for a number of years to and he just show up in the morning and I find them in the break room it's just Eddie you know it's like you changed everything in my world you flipped it upside down you killed disco I love you and it's like, hey man how you doing it's like that's. He was he was just like a guy. That's what I some of these people like George Benson is the greatest player I have ever had the privilege to sit in front of my life bar none and I've been in front of holds worth and Eddie, all those guys. I used to bring George guitars that we would have made for him. And he lived in North Jersey at the time with this beautiful view in New York City, and I bring the guitar I love that he did this to me he knew I was a pretty good player, I was good enough to be playing out and like some of the real guys, he was fucking George Benson so I bring the guitar I go to hand it to me go no rich no cool man, you play I want to hear it, and could you play for me, I play about 10 seconds ago quality gravity just eat my brain and not trying to just be in him, he would just play like, Okay, well I got schooled so I guess I can leave now. Yeah, that guy used to he just ate my brain and the fact that I've been as could have him holds worth Lee written hour john Abercrombie john Schofield, even till today, and on the other hand, have the other stable of the greatest guys was just that I've never experienced anything like it you could just sit in the middle that you had all the gods of jazz and fusion, and, you know, prog rock whatever you want it and over here you had Vinnie more that's that's another guy Vinnie, Vinnie is still a close friend of mine. I think that he's been underrated for an incredibly long time I know he's got some stuff with UFO and people know who he is now and he's definitely had a great career. But when I first met him he was just a kid that could play his fucking ass off, he would come over my apartment and just pick up one of my guitars and that now we're I'd be go like, Okay, I guess I'll just stop like staring at this kid now. But guys like that we had both stables is what I'm saying you know and on the other hand we had Divo, and you know the rock guys in England and Phil Colin and all those cats and it was like, What an experience that was man, and I was just I was in my late 20s, you know it was just ridiculous. Was there any player a lot like a Jordan, say Paul Stanley that was like look I'll come to Ivan as but I want to cut at the company, because I know you know Zach Wilde about seven eight years ago was like why am I playing Gibson. When they're getting all the money and I'm just free guitars, I'll just do my own brand was there anybody like that because it Paul Stanley really to me put as on the map. Now he really did for the modern era of them when it's the I'm not a less Paul I'm not a strap but I'm still good era I totally agree with you. When it came time to sign some of the bigger guys, they would get a deal, they would get either upfront cash or a percentage of how many of the guitar sold that was usually a decision they made with their management. But we never got anybody at that time that wanted a chunk of the company and being a Japanese company at Ivan is and it's family owned the Hoshino family. I would doubt that they would ever feel comfortable with that even today. So I mean a guy like Steve or guy like Benson or a guy like that. They were worth something. So it was, they were willing to make a deal with those guys but it never included like now you're you're part of the company. It wasn't like that. So you're at Ivan as and, you know, you did mention PV at what point do you go to PV. Well actually in between there is a Yamaha. Oh, well, here we go let's talk about this because there's another. Yeah, underrated Jim and Gary Holt from Exodus and myself. There you go. Kirk Hammett, we all worship the Yamaha SG 3000. And it's all because of Dave Medichetti, not the 500, not the 2000. It's the 3000 with the fucking abalone and old nine yards and Dave really put that fucking guitar on the map. Dave would have been bigger if he would do another level. The SG Yamaha guitars would have been up there with fucking Ibanez. Well you know Santana almost got it there with the 2000s. I mean that's like that hit really hard. We sold a bunch of them when I work retail, but you got to remember and I know you know this because you're from the Bay Area Meneketti, why and T was massive here. Huge. And where I was, I knew about them because it was my job to know about them. I got all the local music rags. You know, I got everything from all over the country so I could see regionally what was going on. He blew up like crazy and he got huge in Japan too. So you know when I when I get to Yamaha. So meanwhile here's what happens so I'm at my peak at Ibanez and I know that I can see the other side of the hill. And not right now but I mean I spent five or six years at Ibanez and then I felt like, okay, I've done the big thing. I've blown the big wad here. It's just like I need to move on if I want to do more stuff. So I approached Yamaha and they flew two guys out from Japan right to an airport hotel lounge. These guys were bleary and a couple of guys white guys from California or Americans I should call the white guys anyway they they show up at this hotel and they're talking to me about what I want and I'm a kid right and I don't have to leave my job. So I'm asking for the moon and they're just writing everything down and shaking their head and they leave. I don't hear anything. Nothing at all and I'm just going about my business at Ibanez and everything's cool. And all of a sudden it's like thick envelope from Yamaha shows up and I think it's probably a really nice rejection letter in a t-shirt. You know, and I open it up and it's a contract with absolutely everything I asked for down like everything and I show my wife and I'm like, I guess we're moving to California. Wow. Yeah, so I came out here and I'm in LA we're in North Hollywood and they hired a builder from the Bay Area this guy named Leo Knapp, who is an insane genius. I mean this guy, he got pissed because he found out this guy Larry Robinson was the best in league guy in the world Larry's from up here. He's been in his life. Two weeks later he's doing Trees of Life and insane abalone and I mean just crazy. He's that guy. Right. Some of those Ibanez is like the one that fucking Bob Weir played. The Tree of Life, yeah. Oh man. And those it's interesting that those are called the Bob Weir now, you know when you see him on Reverb. Yeah, I bought one of the second prototypes that he didn't take from a local Philly music store not knowing that the guy that owned the store was on the board at Hoshino. I like that guitar and I went to the store in Philly and I said do you have anything like the Bob Weir guitar of the Tree of Life he goes, how about the second prototype. Wow. Anyway, so I'm at Yamaha. It's me, this builder, and one guy that's like the manager that they plugged in there from Yamaha out here. Right. What year? What year? This is 89. Oh 89, so late. Yeah, so I get there in 89. 89 through because now we have GNR and the less Paul is back. Right, exactly. So like I hit about that time. So I go there and we're trying to figure out what to do. Right. And my, my, how I learned how to design guitars was I drew them on paper. Right. Or we actually carved them out of clay and I've been asked for a couple of things. So anyway, so they said, okay, we want to run a test. Why don't you design a strat style guitar and a less Paul style guitar, knock it out of the park, anything you want. This is not going to be production. We just want to see if our engineers can translate what you draw and what the builder there builds because we built these things to into a production ready instrument. We're going to run a test. Okay, cool. So I make it like a strat the way I would see a strat and I make a less Paul the way I would see a less Paul and they've got some really different features right send it off to Japan, and all of a sudden some prototypes come back. And they're perfect. They look great. And I'm like, okay, so now we can start doing stuff they said, Oh no, these are going into production what do you mean. I'm like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. This was supposed to be like a test of the emergency broadcast system. Right. We're, they're like, no, no, the higher ups like this stuff. So I came out the strat type thing is called the Pacifica. I remember that it's still one of the biggest selling guitars in the world. And we went away from like 200 bucks to like 1500 bucks. And we signed a shitload of people because I was still connected to all these guys from my artist relations stuff. And the wedding tin was named after the street we're on in North Hollywood and that was the less Paul style guitar. And that lasted about 10 years but the Pacifica is still out there. And I did it with Billy Sheehan attitude basis, which are still being produced. Neck through six string for John Patatucci for a bass. I did all that stuff there. It was really weird because it was like, I would just come up with ideas they go, okay. And like all of a sudden there'd be a guitar. It was just ridiculous. It was another great experience. I don't know if you're hip to Michael Lee Ferkins. Oh, I know Michael Lee very well. Yeah, well he's right up here in the Votto bet. He was one of the first people that sent me a tape actually Varney sent me a tape of them and said, I think you're good. I'm like, so I get back to Varney. I'm like, this guy's the best slide player I've ever heard in my life and I'm a Dwayne Alman freak. He's like none of that slide. Well, if it's the whammy bar, I'm like that's impossible. There are notes moving together and going all over the places like trust me. But that was my first guy and then people like bucket head started showing up. So it was a really wild ride there. And they showed me a couple of guitars they have made for Vine that he sent back. Wow. It's like a 32 Frick guitar with like the pyramid with the eye on it for the headstock and it was buried in their vault and it's like, whoa, you guys really went after it but it did not work. And I was shooting the documentary on Limp Bizkit. Yamaha came after Wes and Wes started. He designed this crazy hollow body that they were making for him for. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, the crazy thing with. That's my dog barking in the background. I think the gardener just showed up. Can I go for two seconds to close the door? Yeah, yeah, don't pause it though. Just get I'll just let it go. Yeah, sorry about that. I just got to make sure the dogs in here. It's all good. Stay. Dog break. Come here, Gordy. Come in. Get over here. Come sit with that. Get over here. Get over here, Gordy. Come on. Come on. Go out. Go. Good girl. Sorry about that, dude. It's all good. Didn't expect them to show up. So, so anyway, you're talking about the whole Limp Bizkit thing. Yeah. Back when I was still at Ivan is I had made myself an eight string acoustic guitar. I think there's a picture of it in that PDF. Because I was playing in a band with an upright bass player and a piano player and the piano player record like this, you know, with this like four octaves between notes and this huge sound. And I'd go to comp on my six string and it would go, you know, much less range. So I designed this guitar as an eight string that have an extra low note, extra low string and a high string, which isn't the way people do it today pretty much. They have two low strings anyway. So if I comes over my apartment and Philly we're hanging out and he sees the guitar. And he picks it up and he goes, man, if I had that low note with David Lee Roth. Yeah, I mean it would absolutely kill. And I'm like, how about I make you a seven string age just too many. So I go back to the shop after he goes home the next day he goes up to see his parents in New York. So we're cutting Floyd roses apart and like screwing them back together so they have seven strings and we're talking to Mars and we're like, cut a couple of your bobbins and make us to seven string humbuckers. We cut the Floyd rose nut make it into seven strings, and we cobble together a seven string guitar. And that's the universe, the gem universe guitar the seven string they still sell. We give it to Steve and it like changes the landscape all of a sudden people like you know West Portland all those guys or alone. Man, all yeah all the low note bands man all that dark heavy stuff. King of that man. Well, the thing that was interesting is like it didn't sell when it first came out because it was too weird right. It's like, there was no music for people weren't creating for it. If I used it on an album and it was cool but after that nothing until West got ahold of it, until corn got ahold of it, and then it became epic, you know, it became this huge thing. So anyway, I'm, I'm at, I'm at Yamaha I do those two things. And I'm thinking, okay well I didn't think I was going to like, like, make the major stuff happen right up front. There's no question before you go further while you're at Yamaha. Do you ever at that moment, reach out to Dave Metichetti and go let's do a Yamaha 3000 Dave model. Well you know what it's like the people at Yamaha and Buena Park down in Orange County. I don't they had had some contact with them at some point, and they kind of felt like there was no gas left in that motor. They just that sucked for me because I knew who he was and they were dissuading me for they're like we tried already okay so you know and they showed me some of the stuff they gave me it was wrong. It wasn't an SG. It wasn't even close to a 3000 that somebody had just missed somebody been off the market and they kind of told me, you know, we kind of hold that role when already don't go back there, which sucked for me because I was so hot on getting why and T happening. Having known who they were, and I thought they needed much wider recognition I thought it'd be really cool if he had ads and we sent them out and people knew who he was. They you know it was kind of like I got there after the door closed on right right yeah which kind of you leave Yamaha and then you go to PV which by the way, me growing up in the music scene. PV was always ghetto like, you know, you know played PV, and the whole stage was PV, but nobody played PV. They had the PV I think it was the bandit or something like that. Yeah, yeah, it's like a 12. But no one man if a big this is how the reputation of the eight is if a band showed it up at soundcheck with PV, you would go like these guys suck. I haven't even heard him yet. No, totally true because the store that I was in was a PV dealer. Yeah. And it was sort of like, no, people are looking for Marshalls people even looking for Ampeg or Fender Rams at the time, especially East Coast as Ampeg was there. But yeah, like PV was like, you could get a base amp bigger than a refrigerator for 500 bucks. Yeah, but you got what you pay for at the time. And the interesting thing is I knew a guy that was running the product development down there and he actually lived it just outside of LA and he used to commute there. And I lived in LA at the time for Yama. So he was, he was trying to convince me to go there. So he would take me to these really fancy restaurants all the time and, you know, like buy me a million dollar lunch and say, you could do whatever you want, you know, I'd be your boss to be really cool and I'm like, Yeah, well I'm a kid from New Jersey. I just don't know how that's going to flush down there. I just give it a shot. So I flew down there. And of course, Hartley isn't anything that anybody thinks he is the kind of image that he's created. He's one sharp son of a bitch. I mean, you don't grow a company like that. He basically what he did is he provided like working class players with an amp that would do it. It wasn't sexy. Like you said, like that you saw that back line in a club, you went, Oh, right, this is going to suck. But you know what, all over the South, I started to appreciate can't afford a fender twin, but you can afford a 100 watt deuce, you know, a PV deuce, and it's going to work. All the country band started playing, which was a wise move, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, the other thing that happens like I get down there and this is a different gig for me. I'm a division manager. I'm managing the amps and the guitar. So I'm not the designer on this gig. But you know, Hartley said to me, you know, he put the whole thing of amps up in front of me and he said, What would you do if you were going to like change this so that it was more modern? What would you do? I kind of blew his mind. They're ugly. They're wrong. They look like PV. You got to get rid of the metal things. You got to get rid of the chicken head logo, you know, the color knob thing is really, it's not happening. You really, I said the stuff that's inside of there, people would appreciate it a lot more if it came in a sexy package that they thought was really cool. So he said, What? So we went out, we bought a boogie, we bought a fender, we bought a Marshall, we bought a couple of other cool looking amps at the time. We put it all up on a stage. And we just, you know, brought him in and brought in a bunch of the management people and said, What do you see? What's the coolest looking amp up there? And it wasn't his amp. Of course. So we redesigned the whole way they looked so that they looked like guitar amps. And we upgraded what was in them. We also did the classic series, which was the tweed tube thing. Yeah, actually, they sound amazing. They're pretty, they're outrageous. The amp designer there is one of my best friends. Now his name is James Brown from Mississippi. He is, he's the, he's the head designer at 5150 for all the Eddie amps. Oh, shit. It's that guy. He's the shit. The guy is the shit. Anyway, he had great ears. And after he challenged me a bunch of times to make sure I wasn't full of shit, we got really tight and we would sit there and we do stuff like, What, what's somebody want to feel in a tube amp after they hit hit a really big coordinate, you know, mute the strings. It's like that air suck that that thump at the end of the note that a tube amp does that you don't get from a solid state amp. So we started evaluating all their amps, and he came up with a solid state circuit that breathed like that, which was outrageous. So we put out a whole line of their solid state amps with that and people are going, Damn, these things sound real. So we sold the crap out of that. And then we did when I was there, we did the 5150 combo. They had already, they had already done the 5150 head. Yeah. So I just want to tell a super quick Eddie story because I used to have to deal with Eddie all the time. So okay, they fly him out there on Hartley's private jet. So before you go there, he starts, you know, it's music man, Eddie had a weird era music man and then PV. And also you're like, Eddie's with PV, you just can't even fucking believe it, you know, but he would go where they would listen and build what he wanted to build and his was genius. So go ahead. I just wanted to get it. Well, the other thing is like Eddie, Eddie knew James Brown well before I got there. They had already done the 5150 amp, the head, and it was outrageous. Right. So I get there and there's a bunch of 5150 heads being developed. There's like a couple of Marshall Plexi's guess who those are like a couple of Saldanos. Yeah, which is really what the big impetus was for Eddie's 5150 amp. And a couple of like Bogners and other sort of unusual shit. So that's where that stuff came from James Brown and Eddie got along unbelievably. I mean, he ended up being the head designer 5150. Right. So that's pretty serious. But anyway, incredible ears incredible hands. So I have to deal with Eddie because we're about to do the combo. Right. So, Hartley sends his private jet and here's Eddie, he lands in, you know, meridian Mississippi from where he lives. He gets off the plane he's got a case of old duals. Oh, he's not. He's not freeze like not drinking quote unquote for a while right. Okay. Just with some water or something, but nah. Yeah, he's got to get the taste right. So he's walking around all the different like manufacturing plants and people are growing apeshit because it's Eddie and he's got what looks like a beer. Yeah, right. And people are like, whoa, you can't come in. He's like, it's Eddie. It's not a beer. You're okay. Anyway, so Hartley calls me and says, I'm taking the plane. I got to go to Florida. I'm having a problem down there at some house he was building right. I'm like, okay, what do you want me to do with Eddie's just what everyone's just hang out with them. You don't just hang out with Eddie. So he's staying in the fucking holiday and in meridian Mississippi right. There's a loud, there's a lounge act. It's like some girl singer and a guy with a Casio keyboard playing like really bad versions of the tits. So Eddie gets out of the elevator and it empties out right behind this bar. Somebody yells it's fucking Eddie Van Allen. The horrible duo starts doing jump. Wow. Oh my God. He's laughing. They're crowding around. They're trying to buy him beers and I'm like, no beer man. He doesn't they're like, what do you mean Eddie doesn't want to be here. Yeah, so he had he had his case of old duels were walking around and he's getting bored. So he wants me to take him somewhere. There's nowhere. So I end up in the holiday and sitting in the bar, just listening to Eddie's story for like an entire day and a half, which was incredible, but I felt really bad for the guy. And then hardly comes back and they just kind of suck him into the vortex. But I mean when I'm thinking that elevator door is going to open and we're not going to make it to the street. I mean there's no way when people figure out who this guy is. So like everybody in town knew he was there couldn't go anywhere without people mobbing you and falling around like he was a magnet or something. It was cool. But that's we worked on. We worked on his guitar, the version the similar guitar to the one that music band had. I knew Starling ball really well and and he and Hartley were best friends. And he kind of handed off Eddie to him there's no bad blood nothing and actually it was kind of like, we've kind of done what we can do here he wants to go with a company can do his amp and guitar. Right. And we can't do that we're not making amps anymore so you know enjoy so that was really wild and Eddie's there literally the designer guy that I worked with who's now the head designer Gibson for years. And he had drawn a shape that he thought Eddie might like for his guitar. Eddie and Hartley are standing there both with an old duels and a pencil, and they're like a racing shit moving stuff around that became his Wolfgang. Wow. That's just watched. Yeah, it's funny when that guitar came out, because I played it and I was like, oh this thing's great. Just felt like an old Darvel the neck nailed and old Charvel. Great. Yeah. And then you know Eddie always loved Les Paul but he didn't play him because he played you know that the sharp L's because of the tremolo and everything so I had that backlash Paul kind of feel and and you know it was wild all of a sudden PV was on the fucking map. Isn't that crazy. Yeah, well yeah and I'm there while that's happening right because you know I grew up one of my like you it's like oh really you bought me a PV thanks a lot that you know it's like you look lame. It's a shame because he was trying to do something good but the mentality didn't flush where we grew up. Yeah, we were we were around all the crap where you could buy a Marshall or a fender or a bookie whatever you want it you could get it in a music store and you couldn't do that down there in the south, you know, it was few and far between and that So, um, but I mean what a transition so I'm there when Eddie lands there, which is a fortuitous massive moment. So he's in the middle this giant warehouse with a couple of 5150 combo produce that are all a little different and James Brown and me. So I get to listen to Eddie play for like two and a half days. Wow, just noodling around and I'm like mind blown. As you can see a lot of my gigs end up with me my mouth on the ground going holy. So, I mean, to be around that guy. Holy shit. Well, so anyway the designer's name was Jim Nicola he's now one of the senior guys at Gibson and he's a really worthy dude and a fantastic designer I just want to give him that little shout out but so, so I'm a PV and all this crazy stuff is happening. And I get a phone call. Who's this guy. It's, it's the owner of modulus which the guy was a friend of mine, Jeff cool. And he's like, um, I'm getting out of the company. I just, I, you know, I got to go. It's been a number of years. I got to do other things and there's a guy that wants to buy it. What do you think and I'm like, what do I think. I don't know. It's your, it's your business dude that sounds kind of creepy but maybe interesting. I don't know. So, I find out that there's this guy who shall remain nameless because he would like to be. He's Bob Weir's best friend. Wow. Bob had invested in modulus, but Bob used to go out on tour, make a shitload of money and come back spend all of it and then just keep going. Jerry had just died a few weeks before I'm doing this right while I'm hearing about this. And this guy's worried that Bobby's just like pissing money into the wind, but he looks at the company goes, this is some interesting shit. These guys invented the graphite neck guitar and bass, you know, this, this could go somewhere. He decides to buy the company. I have Hasselberger back from my Ivanist days vouchers for me to become the CEO. Wow. So I'm sitting in meridian Mississippi just coming off the anything going wow, they're not going to get any better than this. Next thing I know it's like, Hey dude, you want to move to the Bay Area and run a guitar company for Bob Wearing and friends. Holy shit. So I knew Bobby because of the Ivanist guitars, even though that guitar is in the past when I work there when the dead would play Philly, they play the arena. He take a goddamn cab 30 miles north of where we were and just hang out. Wow. Yeah, he loves gear too, man. That's a man. Well, yeah, he's just a cool guy, you know, and he's playing the box now the fucking to farm and see 30s. I got those for him. Absolutely. They kill. So anyway, so I've known Bobby for a million years is all I'm saying. So I came out and I met the guy that was financing and of course we were the Bobby's house. And he's like, you're that guy I've known for a million years from Ivanist. I'm like, yeah, right. And he's like, Oh shit. So he vouched for me. Right. And this guy hired me. And I spent eight years there. It was just unbelievable. These are the people, you know, the idea came out of a limb big for the graphite neck. It was actually Rick Turner, who just died recently who did Turner guitars. He's like the ground zero for almost everything including a limb big and modulus and son and all these things that happened out here. He like he was sort of like the hidden genius dude. So he figured out the graphite neck. So I called him and said, Rick, should I do this? I mean, is this cool or is this a sinking boat and I should really just stay where I am because everything's healthy. He's like, I think you could do something for these guys. So I came out here and again I decided there's no Mr modulus. So I set my sights on flee. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I'm like, who's who's them at the time and now who's one of the most happening base guys who has the kind of impact that only guitar players have usually. Yeah, this cat. So this woman doing my artist relations Jean McNall at the time took yoga classes in LA on the weekend. Don't even ask me how because she lived up here. He was in the yoga class with her. Wow. She got to know him because they were just both there for yoga. He was just another guy. So she brings him to us. And of course, I call Sterling ball again, because it looks like the Eddie thing flees his guy. Right. And I'm like, I don't know what happened to me there. Did I disappear. Yeah. Can you hear me. Yeah, I can hear you. Okay, I don't know what happened. Let me. That's really Oh, there I am. I just I evaporated God said no. Okay, so anyway, yeah, not you. So anyway, I get him on the phone because I'm like, I don't want conflict. And they're way bigger than me. They're not massive but they could they could get mad. Anyway, he said, again, he said, you know, please a tremendous guy. We love him to death. He's been using a music band forever. And, but he's been trying jazz basses has been doing a couple other things and he said, you know, if he decided that he would want to do something with you guys that's that's okay. So I got Sterling to not be, you know, make sure he knew what was happening and that he wasn't going to be angry. But so, you know, we got a hold of fling. And again, you know, I just I said to him, what do you need. What aren't you getting what would make your life better. You know, because you get any bass you want you can get any guy in LA or anywhere to build you something. What would be different. So, we basically made him a combination of like a jazz bass and a music man with a graphite neck. He developed a three coil pickup for him with Bartolini that was just fucking unbelievable this thing would punch you in the head so hard you got knocked out. And he it was unreal man because he I mean the guy can do pretty much anything he wants he's a great player, but it made it for him it made it so that he was free to play the kind of shitty one or two. And so, my kid at the time was eight nine, he's 35 now I hate to tell you, well, he came he came up with the ad campaign. We did five pages of a picture of his flee with no shirt on with just part of a base, you know his hat, the whole thing and in the end, it says fleet of expression. My kid came up with that that whole idea and fleas like that's the shit. Let's do that. So we ran that campaign it was the biggest ad bass player magazine had ever seen. And we sold zillions of those bases. Crazy. Crazy. So, but as he's like I keep wherever I go I try to focus on the impact of what can this company actually do to separate itself from the guy next to me. Music bands the shit. I worship their bases their guitars are incredible. I think they're the finest American made production guitar right now. I mean Sarah is incredible colleagues is incredible, but for like long term, unbelievable quality and play ability for me it's music man. I've worship them forever. Anyway, so we had flea. And he brought Dave Navarro to us he brought all his friends to us so all of a sudden, we weren't just the company that made basis for the, the jam band dead heads. Right. Suddenly, we got flea and then we get you know Jeff Amen. You know, in project. Yeah, holy crap. I mean we get guys like that who are suddenly waking up and going, this shit's really good. So it was a really cool time and it was really cool. I gotta tell you Vox, I've had a lot of amps. I think the greatest amp ever made for me was the AC 15 fawn with the black panel, and I own the original one. It was my amp I also had the AC 30 fawn black panel. And I became obsessed with them because, you know, there's that time where Mark Samson was making a reliable match was the reliable version of an AC 30 and of course, Tom Petty and Oasis. They were playing Vox and I got one was incredible. And I think for me the AC 30, and the telecaster is the greatest jiggly singer songwriter sound of all time. There's no better. There's no better than that man. You know, it's, it's, it's really interesting because to me in the old school way of looking at things you got four groupings of amps you got Fender, you've got, you got Boogie, which created their own channel. You've got Marshall and you have Vox. Yeah, out of out of those amps, the most unusual one that's up to me is the most personalized sounding one is the AC's, the 15 and the 30. That's, you know, it's weird. I've got an AC 50 sitting in the other room right now. Unplayable so loud. A 30 will a 30 is too loud. It's way 15 is almost too loud. It's ridiculous. So, so this 50 is sitting in like a 12 by 12 room. It's got a power attenuator on a dude. I will rip my face off with that amp. But the 15 and the 30s, you have original ones or I did I sold them, but my dream is to get the hand wired AC 30 tan, you know, because they started making the hand wires and I was like, Oh God, I want one of those. You know, but I had originals and I would gig with the AC 15, man. And it was brave. At any time they could melt down or could get damaged by some fucking guy walking by, you know, the Tolex was perfect. Oh man, but you know, the other crazy part about the original 60s ones like you had is they use a preamp tube called an EF 86. I don't know if you ever had to deal with that. But that's a tube that if you if you breathe on it, it shatters. It's, you can't move the amp much or you're going to have a problem and it's I believe it's the first preamp tube so the whole damn thing shuts down. Yeah, when they started to make the hand wires again about, you know, 15 years ago, the designer this guy. Dave Clark who's still there, he decided they have original ones obviously so he decided I'm putting the EF 86 in there, and I'm going to wrap it in it's going to be on a shock mounted tube socket and it's going to be wrapped in like anti vibration insulation and it's going to work. It does, to a certain extent. Yeah, I've had a couple of those they sound really amazing they sound like Tom Petty they sound like the kinks. They have all that shit going on but you move that thing and you were, you're in trouble man, it's going to give you trouble so the newer ones have a 12 a x7 in there but they worked really hard to give it the same jangle in the same exact and the Brian may sound. That's all in that tube, you know, and also if you stop for a second and think of the massive width of tones that come out of that you got Brian may, which is one of the most singular guitar tones of all time. That's just a goddamn AC 30 and a treble booster, right thick and which is the key, the treble booster and old British it is the key to making that amp sing. Anyway, and then you've got all these modern guys with the jangle sound like the, you know, the Tom Petty and the heartbreakers. And the thing can do a million different things but it is a very specific tone. It is Mark Samson nailed mark the matchless stuff, the chieftain and all those amps were like, it's a box that doesn't break now the modern ones don't break they got that nail, but there's just something about an original one. I like to smell the amp to I'm sorry, I mean, I do to an old Fender tweed or a Vox amp or a Marshall Plexi. It's got a damn smell and that smell better be there. If I'm in the room with this thing because that's part of the experience. They should bottle that as a spray man, you know, they have new like new car smell you get old amp smell. I think three different ones you could get. Yeah. Guitar case, you know, old guitar case, vintage guitar, then you and then and then Martin guitar smell and then vaubes burned in smell. That's our next businessman. We're going to we're going to do this together. But yeah, I mean there's there's there's something about the overall experience. I mean I can tell you're in a you're a gear. It's like, seriously, that AC 50s from 1965. I still find myself sitting in the room sometime before I turn it on and go. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's that's real. That thing is real. It's been around the block a few times. That's so funny. You mentioned the guitar case smell. I opened a 58 junior less Paul junior in a chipboard case the other day that was a friend of mine. We both just sat there in the room going. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's like this like, yeah, yeah, it's it's you can get that into it, you know, but anyway, so I digress. But yeah, so at Vox, the challenge for me at Vox has been, okay, Vox guitars were a niche thing in the 60s. You know, they made some of them in England, but they made really weird shapes like the teardrop and the phantom, and the pickups were iconic and the hardware was kind of half ass. And the Italian ones are actually more together. But you know most of the hollow buddies were fully hollow the pickup squealed. They were bold on neck 335s which is awfully strange for Americans right. So it was like, I had to kind of weed through who Vox is and decide who Vox should be. And that wasn't easy. It was like, okay. So we decided, they tried really hard to innovate however crazy it was I mean they put wawa pedals in guitars, they put fuzz is in guitars, right, didn't necessarily give you the best thing on earth but it was something different. They were trying to find a spot. So I thought, okay, we came out with the garage back in 15 years ago, and it was a semi hollow guitar that was smaller than a 335, but I bent it in both directions like a strat. You didn't know it was happening, but you put it against your body and it hugged you like a Stratocaster, but it looked like a 335. So all of a sudden I had these guys and we did the geometry to be kind of halfway between a Gibson defender. So I don't know which camp you fall in, but I was a Gibson guy my whole life until I was in my 20s. I had to figure out why can't I play a strat? Why does it feel so weird to me? It came down to the geometry and how close the strings are to the face of the pickguard. Gipsons are far away. There's a lot of room for your picking hand. Fenders are right near the pickguard and right above the pickups and there's no neck angle. So the guitar sits straight where Gibson sits back. Anyway, I had to deal with that. So we created this guitar that automatically bent around you and felt comfortable and it had 25 inch scale halfway between Gibson and Fender. So both guys or girls could feel comfortable on this thing. So we felt like that's what we're trying to move things forward for Vox. What would Vox do? So we've been doing a lot of innovative stuff like that and we're in the middle of bringing back some solid bodies from the 60s, but making them professional level instruments. They look really cool and they cast the shadow of those old nerdy, weird Italian guitars, but they play a great American-made guitar. Vox is fucking, another thing Vox has going for them is they're king of the hipster. You look at like Velvet Underground or right now Brian Jonestown Massacre, who's one of the great bands ever, they've been fucking rocking the Vox 12 strings and the AC 30s. This shit is, it's a vital, vital tone, man. It's cool. They've always played Vox 2 from the jam, you know. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's just the Vox sound and the Vox wall, man. They invented it. Yeah, it's fucking crazy how great Vox is. I know. And the AC 30, like I said, it was just the sound, man. That's Tom Petty, man. Oh, absolutely. Well, the wild thing about the wall wall, which I'm sure you know is it was originally supposed to honor a trumpet player and Clyde McCoy. Yeah, yeah. The original ones have a drawing of him on the back of it. I remember getting one as a kid, right, and going like, what the fuck? Yeah. It's supposed to be like a plunger on a trumpet. Yeah. It's like you're kidding me. So then I try it and I'm like, oh shit. Yeah. Oh my God. Then I hear. Clyde McCoy wall right now, but from Clyde, you know. Oh my God, that guy. Yeah. That's a wall, man. That's a wall. I was just talking about walls yesterday on my podcast, like. Oh yeah. Taka Saki has his own fucking wall now. And I'm like, yeah, right. Who knows who that guy? I mean, I know, but who knows who that guy is. Right. We're in the biz. So we know who he is. But I know, but it's like, you know, we've done a couple of like artists, like short runs of wah-wah pedals. But it's like the funny part is you got Vox and you got Dunlop. Yep. And Dunlop's got cry baby. Right. And we've got the Vox wah and they're both like pushing as hard as they can. What can you do with a wah-wah pedal? Who can use one? What can you change? My kid who's a ridiculously great player who's down in LA right now working with a couple of bands. He works for Dunlop, right? Oh yeah. They have a wah-wah pedal the size of a wallet. I saw that those baby wads. It kills. It kills because it fits on your pedal board without screwing everything up. He just, I just put a pedal board together for him right before he left. So he'd have something for his gigs down there. And he gives me this wah-wah pedal that's like the size of an ice cream sandwich. I'm like, what the hell is this? He's like, plug it in. Yeah. It kills. You know, I love, I love. And this is my favorite wah of all time that Dunlap did. The five switching one. So you got a whole different one. So because I love the Curtis Mayfield era wah of the long throw of the 70s porn, you know, the wah-wah. Oh yeah. Yeah. And man that fucking five selector wah was unreal. I had one of them. Yeah. Definitely. But you know, Vox makes a whole bunch of them and Dunlap does. And it's like, who would have thought when it first came out that there'd be like more than one. Yeah. You can actually do something else with a wah-wah pedal, but they got it nailed. So yeah. So what we're trying to do with the guitars is follow in that, that innovation, you know, Vox had a treble booster back when I didn't know what a treble booster was. I didn't want to get, I had a telly. I didn't want it to be brighter. I didn't know that it. I never had a treble boosted ice pick, man. Ow. That's why I love it. You see 30 with a telly because it browned. Oh man. Wow. I remember when Mike Matthews started electro harmonics, I was around New York city as a kid. And I remember getting hullabaloo magazine, which turned into circus magazine. And for 995 and 25 cents postage, you would get an LPB one power booster in the mail. And it was essentially a treble booster. And I had two of them plugged into the front of a 68 SG. Oh, pretty much blew up any amp you put it in, but I had the Leslie West home for years. Yeah. Not knowing that that was all just coming out of his fingers, you know, but yeah, all that stuff is so cool. When guys like Mike Matthews has popped up and went, yeah, let's mess everything up. Let's give you shit. You've never had before. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy that. I enjoy people that like mess up what's normal and do something great. Do you have any old shit around like old gems and ice men's and SG 3000s? Or did you just sell it as you were going around? Well, you know what? That's really interesting because there was a time when I first got it out here from Mississippi where I was dragging along a bunch of RGs and some gems and stuff from everywhere I worked. And I had a pile of it and I looked at it and I went, that's like looking at old photographs. I started to feel it's like somebody else can get something out of this. They're my kids that have grown up and left. I really need to like push them forward. So the other thing I did is my son is a great player. Like I said, and I had a whole pile of older guitars and other things like and I used to take them in the music room and go someday, all this will be your son. And I remember one day I decided, what am I doing? He's the player now. He's the guy that's out there. Yeah. So I took him in the room and I remember that I said someday and he's like, yeah, I'm like, it's today. Yeah. I'm like, wow. Okay. So I paid it forward to him. So, and he gets used out of him and he got rid of the stuff he didn't need, which I couldn't do. I'd look at it and go, I can't sell that. That's one of the first RGs, you know, or I, no, I can't do that. That's, you know, I tried that guitar out, you know, and I decided, dude, I can't live in the past. I need to be now. So the only guitar I kept strangely enough is a 73 guild F4 12 string, which is the most. It's, it's the most insane guitar I've ever owned. It's never had a neck adjustment. And I, I, I toured the world with this thing. Half a dozen to a dozen times. Nothing ever happened to it. And I just decided. That's my good. And so like right now I've got, I don't know, maybe 10 guitars, 11 guitars, but they're just coming and going. Yeah. Yeah. Same with me, you know, I mean, I own two of the greatest guitars in the world. I've ever known them anymore. 52 telly and a, a 60 telling custom that. But. Oh, wow. Yeah. Those were the two greatest guitars I've ever known. And the first year. Tom Murphy 59. Awesome. Yeah. 1995. Yeah. Aged one, the first age, the first hundred that they did, but I don't know in any of them anymore. And I miss them, but I don't play anymore. I do comedy. So I just miss them more for the, the 52. I miss the most because it was probably the best 52 I ever played in my life. Wow. Wow. But in that, you know, I just love gear. Now these days I love gear as pieces of art in my house. You know, John mayor gave me one of his Paul Reed Smith. And it's just beautiful. Nice. You know, I got a banker explore. Karina explore just fucking. Oh, wow. You know, Hey, you know, just. Oh, go ahead. Sorry, man. It's just gears to me now is just, it's just all about, you know, art, you know, and. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, well, you know, the funny thing for me is having been a guitar designer for almost 40 years now and some of the, it blows my mind that most of the things that I developed are still selling and I can still walk into a music store and it's like my kids. Too bad. Royalty on all the stuff you designed. Well, you know what? The thing is that I seem to be incredibly good at making millions of dollars for other people. Yeah. And that's okay. That's fine with me, you know, except for modulus. I didn't really have like a dog in the hunt, you know, I work for people, but they supply me with the tools that I need and the budgets that I need to accomplish this stuff. So that may at the end of the day, that makes me happy. But I just want to say a couple of really quick things. One is shout out to Paul Reed Smith. Yeah. He was a local guy in Maryland. When I was in Philly, my store was the second Paul Reed Smith dealer in the country. I believe he brought in two guitars by himself and I knew him as a repair guy for years. I'd send people to him, you know, down there. Anyway, he came in with two of the early 24s, right? Just beautiful. But the stuff that was selling was like a single pickup pink guitar with one green knob and a Floyd on it. So the owner of the store goes, we don't have any use for these men, you know, that kind of natural stuff with the wood is just not happening myself and one other guy there who knew the score said, let him leave him on consignment. They won't be here next week. Trust me. These, there's some shit here. This is happening. We put them in the case. They were gone. And all of a sudden it's like Paul broke that. He broke the, it's got to look like a Charvel. It's got to look like an Ivan is, you know, it's got to be a hot rod. It can be a beautiful guitar that can do a bunch of cool stuff. And the beauty part is cool. My dream guitar is the Santana yellow. That's, that's my dream guitar these days. I just, the, the first two runs of them, you know, the ones that are sharpied on the back and then the next time. Those I think are some of the, it just killed because it was a totally different guitar. It looked like a, you know, looked a double cutaway, a little bit of a less Paul, double cutaway junior, but then it also kind of looked a little bit like a, it had an arch to it and everything. So it looked like, like an SG 3000, but without the pointy and stuff. But man, I love that guitar. I love it. And the one that John gave me is phenomenal, man. But the Santana yellow for me is the one. That's it. I'll, I'll tell you. He, he basically like, if you remember the movie, the fly where the guy gets stuck it in the machine and he ends up being part fly. I think Paul had that machine and he had, he had a less Paul and a strap. Yeah. And they came out all messed up and they came out great. But I mean, I just want to shout out to the guy because I know how hard it is to start a guitar company from nothing. I also know how hard it is when you know that your idea is going to be right eventually, but people are telling you, you're wrong. And Paul just fucking never stopped. And he was right. And now we have the third grade American guitar company that you can debate. There are other great ones out there in this country, but Fender Gibson and PRS and there didn't used to be PRS. And I give them a ton of credit. And the other thing I wanted to say really quick when you're talking about your favorite guitars, people always think I'm going to have some like really trippy guitars, my favorite guitar or some like bizarre headless eight string thing or something like that. My two favorite guitars that I worship in the entire world are a 50 single cut Les Paul Jr. Oh yeah. And a first or second year 335 Long guard. I've owned both of those. I grew up around Leslie West when he was Leslie Weinstein. Yeah. So what you can do with two knobs and one P 90 is mind blowing to me. I still find shit in that guitar that all the switching crazy complicated crap in the world just doesn't bring you. And to me the 335 it's so normal today. That was an insane idea in 58. That was crazy. It's like, what can we do that nobody on earth can do but Gibson right now? It's like, Hey, what if we had it took a jazz guitar and shrunk and make it thin and put a solid block of wood in the middle so it doesn't feed back and you can turn your amp up as loud as you want. Where the hell did that come from? That's a wild concept. I love the 58 Les Paul Jr. TV. I had it. Yeah. The way they turn into that oatmeal. Yeah. And that 58 was the year where they had the rubber toggle cover instead of the plastic as they ran out later to make it. That's what I've seen on the George Benson later in my house. Yeah. And then of course, I think the 52 Esquire one pickup is the roll machine man for, you know, Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's like, it's like when I was coming up, like I had a bunch of juniors. So I knew what they could do, but I just, I thought like anything besides like doing humble pie covers. I'm not going to be able to use this guitar. I'm not going to be able to use it. I'm going to be able to use it. And then I ran into Leslie West. Yeah. Really, really quick. I know we're, we're, we've been on here for a while, but my, my anecdote with him is I followed around as a kid. I went and saw him on Long Island a bunch of times. I saw the Vagrants. He was your wife. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Nobody knew who he was. He's some local guy. And you know, he was a pretty scary looking dude. So it was sort of like, well, I'm not going to ask him any questions. So anyway, for years, I, I went to, I went and saw him on Long Island. I went and saw him on Long Island. I went and saw him by the sun amp that he used because I saw him. I bought the wrong one. Oh yeah. It was, it was like an AC 100. It was louder than hell. No tone. And it broke your face with every note. I couldn't figure it out. So years, decades later. I'm in the, I go into the elevator and I'm showing Nashville. Larry de Marseille is in there. Who's my buddy and Leslie's with him. Oh wow. So I go up to Leslie and I feel like, oh man, you know, this guy's got a great sense of my brain. And he says, 16 years old, your tone, each my brain. How the hell do you get that? He said, I turn it up to my balls bang together. And then I know it's right. And then the door is open, then he was gone and Larry just goes. Yeah. Yeah, man. It's all in his hands. It's all in his hands. And I'll tell you why I know that. I played the biker run, the redwood run. And my band opened for Leslie West. And he came with no gear. He flies in on a helicopter and they go, we need to use your gear. And we just had fucking our gear up there and he goes into Mississippi Queen and it sounds exactly like a 90, but he's playing a goddamn strat through in combo amp, you know, a combo matchless. And he's up there, you know. And so that is the proof. It's the same with Billy Gibbons. I've watched some classic guitars. Everything sounds like it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't. Yeah, these guys, yeah, it was great talking to you, man. Thank you. This is really fun. Yeah, I appreciate you talking to me, man. I hope we we can informally continue this because obviously we're both high on guitars and amps. Absolutely. And I want to ask you one question before we leave. I've been going to the NAMM since the 80s like you. And it's weird what it is now. It almost seems totally useless with the Instagram world. It's kind of like Rolex going to Baselworld, you know, or watches and wonders and stuff. But the NAMM show, it's really kind of sad what it turned into as far as, you know, while your booth is a million dollars and and all of that, you know, do you think that there's something that can come out later on like a NAMM show? But that's fucking hip. You know, I hope so. And I would hope, though, I have no way of thinking that this is actually going to happen. They've tried to put some new blood into NAMM. That's really hard because it's an old organization. I just saw Victor Wooten signed onto their board. Wow. You know, yeah, they're looking for some people with some vision and they can widen it. You know, I know the guys that run that. Of course, we all do in this industry. And they know, they know that, you know, the viability of NAMM has changed drastically after the pandemic. Yeah, we all cut. We all learned that we didn't necessarily need to be there because it used to be like, oh, my God, I've got to get my shit to the NAMM show or nobody's going to know I'm alive. I don't know where it's going and I don't know if something can come of it. Maybe it will join with something else. It's very cool. That might be a good idea. You know, join with some like techier stuff that will bring in like a wider audience. But I know there's struggle is a NAMM festival. And what is it? The music festival and the gear is at the festival, the booths. Yeah, you know, fucking killer. Yeah. So you're seeing players, they get to see and play. It's not like you got to go over to this bar and then across to this convention center and you got to go down around the corner over there. It's just a festival and it's all the fucking dealers. And what a cool idea stage. Now, that's a really cool idea. Somebody something to incorporate with these things actually do. Right. Right. It's like instead of the show up at NAMM. Yeah, instead of just looking at it, people are using it. And then you can go talk to somebody if you're like, man, that fucking guitar looks really cool. They're right there. Yeah, you know, I I like that. But that fresh blood, something to pump some life into this. And, you know, and people today, it's all on your phone or in your computer. So, you know, they don't feel like they need to go anywhere. It's like, OK, let me see what's cool right now. Oh, there's a cool guitar company. They don't need to have it stuck in their face and spend a million dollars to get there. I like your idea, though. I mean, that's something that they should consider is like change the venue and change the function of it, but turn it into something where people really want to be there. Yeah, you know, get it out of the fucking convention center and get it out like maybe some kind of indoor outdoor type of thing where there's a concert going on. Oh, Steve Vai's playing at two at the Gibson stage or Ibanez stage or whatever, and just all these booths and families can go and everything and be like, oh, fucking look at this. Here's the amps and all of that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And that creates a level of excitement that they don't have right now. Yeah. Interesting idea, man. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Great to have you, man. And congrats on the Vox gig and send me some photos of that AC-15, the hand wire. Oh, yeah. I'd like to look at it. I mean, I don't see them in music stores. The only time I ever see them is those used ones on Reverb, you know, and it's good to know about that, that to stay away from the early ones. Unless you have 86. Yeah, if you're going to leave it in your studio or something, they're the best, but yeah, it's it's definitely it's the function of the tube, the structure of its week. That's right. Right. All right, dude. One last question. Have you, has anybody seen Mark Sampson around? No, I lost contact with him a long time ago, and I'd love to know what happened to him because he's one of these guys like he moved on the bad cat and he moved off of that and he had some other stuff going on. And I lost him about the third iteration of what he was doing. That's interesting. Sampson, a bad cat to Sampson. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, other guys came and just started killing it also, which was like divided by 22, Fred and all these. Oh, yeah. Best best amp I ever owned was a divided by 13 FDR 37, but he wouldn't sell it to me until one of his artists vouch for me. Oh, wow. This is my last story. The artist was Henry Kaiser, and I know Henry really well for the Bay Area. I call him on his phone, he's an Antarctica. He's entertaining people in Antarctica, but he had a satellite phone. Oh, wow. Wow. So I'm like, hey, man, do you think you could give Fred a call because he's like just being cautious, because he doesn't just want anybody to drop out of the moon and like mess up one of his amps and give him a bad thing. And I said, oh, yeah, I'll call him later today. I'm like, oh, thanks. Well, where are you? He said Antarctica. Holy shit. That's Henry. Anyway, thank you for everything, man. Thanks, buddy. I will see you. I'll see you, bud.