Episode 9 - Richard Hoover

In this episode of Soundwall we interview Richard Hoover, the founder and Head Luthier of Santa Cruz Guitar Company.

We discuss Richard's beginnings as a luthier, his philosophy on how to build the best sounding acoustic guitar, and the 50th anniversary of Santa Cruz Guitar Company.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

In this episode of Soundwall, we interview Richard Hoover, the founder and head luthier of Santa Cruz Guitar Company. We'll discuss Richard's beginnings as a luthier, his philosophy on how to build the best sounding acoustic guitar, and of course, the 50th anniversary of Santa Cruz Guitar Company. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

You're listening to Soundwall with Adam Schumann, presented by Danville Music, your local music store.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

All right, everybody, welcome to Soundwall. Today's guest is going to be Richard Hoover, uh, founder and president of Santa Cruz Guitars. This year they're celebrating their 50th anniversary, which that's a huge deal. I've been running the store for almost five years, and I'm already feeling like uh a little bit overwhelmed. So you beat me by 10 already, and uh thank you so much for spending the time to come out here.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Absolutely. I'm delighted to be with you, as always.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

Yeah, so uh the first question we like to ask is tell me about the first time you fell in love with music.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Uh I'm gonna use this one. Uh let's go back to probably 1956. And uh uh the telephone was in the hallway uh on a piece of furniture by itself, and the record player was uh likewise, it was between the uh living room and the kitchen on a little stand, and it was a Philco, uh uh charcoal and uh uh white with black speckles and sparkles in the cabinet, right? Um and uh uh you opened it up and uh it would take LPs, but it also had a little spindle for 45s to put on there. Uh and uh you put that little um little crazy plastic thing in there to adapt it. And uh my mother was playing The Ventures, and uh I was listening to uh it wouldn't have been Nokia Edwards at the time, I can't remember who the guitar player was that preceded him, uh, but uh uh walk don't run. And I went, I want to do that. And I was old enough to uh uh understand and appreciate uh so you know that was the that was where I was inspired both to want to play guitar and uh appreciate music and have a connection. Uh but my my first memory in falling in love was sitting in my mother's lap when she played piano. You know, that was just that was beautiful. And she played old uh standards at the time, but she also played boogie woogie. You know, so I go to the city. Yeah, I'd go to sleep in her lap uh when she was playing as magic. And uh I I have some you know visual memories of that. Nice connection, huh?

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Oh, it's very nice. Very nice.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Got gotten mom in there.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Yeah, so so um your mom was playing piano. Did you start on piano or did you um no?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Uh uh this interesting developmental story. Uh everybody's uh so far gone, uh I could probably mention names. Fern Bliss was the wife of the uh Mike Bliss that owned the music store in town. Um that uh sold guitars, records, uh band instruments, uh uh TVs and radios, you know, appliances. Um and uh I'm gonna say for my uh eighth birthday, I got piano lessons. Um uh before that, yeah, I I had uh uh goofed around on the piano, but I wasn't pushed to do anything with it. I was really central in her house. Um so uh at at eight I got piano lessons. For my ninth birthday, I got to quit. Uh she was uh uh uh really well respected as a pianist and a teacher. She taught some people that went on to professional careers, uh, but uh she was really severe. Um and I didn't I kind of rebelled against the discipline. And as I recall, uh she had a little uh conductor's baton, like a it was like a little uh hardwood egg and uh uh a little plastic noodle that came out of it, you know, conduct with. And she'd rap you on the on the knuckles, you know. It's like the Catholic school form you made a mistake. Exactly. Exactly. So I didn't look forward to it at all, and I was really glad to get out of it. And I'm surprised it didn't undo me uh for my desire to play music.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

Yeah, that could be traumatic.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah, I was never forced at home. Now, uh Fern bl bliss, you know, God rest her soul, uh uh like I said, was uh uh was was well respected, remarkable. It didn't work for me, so I'm not blaming her at all. Um I've got uh uh uh my own learning challenges, and uh it just it wasn't a compatible way to try to learn. Uh so uh, you know, to anticipate a further question, uh the guitar uh was something like I said, uh whoever was playing with Avengers at the time, it really moved me, and I loved everything about the guitar, you know, the sound, whatever. And I and I knew I wanted to play, but there was no avenue for it. Uh school had a band program, but no guitar uh at all. And there was one guy in town that taught uh Caspar Garcia and uh uh and Fred Rader, and they both uh had came from old big band stuff, and their thing was first you you learn the fundamental scales and uh uh chord shapes and things like that. And they're you know, they they came from uh uh uh the old arch top comping cord, every note was a different chord, you know, and they were really complex. And I just I I did a couple lessons and I went, this is just not gonna work, you know, for me.

SPEAKER_04 6:52

Yeah, the jazz chords starting off especially are not easy.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah. It's uh really interesting. Uh what we know today uh about how people learn and how they learn differently. Uh sometimes you would go, that's not a disability. In fact, that can be very advantageous the way you perceive things. Uh, but uh you've got to be aware of it and present uh information or let people do to be able to get that. So again, no excuses. I blame nobody but myself, but I just couldn't learn that way. Um, so uh, you know, what it what it took is uh uh uh we'll really wanting to learn to play guitar to impress a girl later on.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

It helps. We call it uh upping our stock value when we're on tour.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

That's right. Oh, that was a great motivation.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

Well, were you tinkering around with with things that were not musical at the time? Were you taking apart watches or cutting on the music? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Uh yeah. Uh let me give you a little background here. Um is that uh my mother was uh uh a school teacher, you know, she came from Nebraska where she was a school mom and she taught in a one-room school, uh five to eighteen-year-olds, right? Oh wow. Oh man, she's tough. Um and uh she was really smart, a voracious reader, um, and she could uh any, you know, any published poetry, you could say the first few words and she'd tell you who wrote it and et cetera. So she, as she retired from teaching, she became a rock star reference librarian. Um before the personal computer, you called my mom. You didn't ask Google, you asked my mom. And she would get the uh she would lead you to the publications or the books or whatever on the subject. Uh uh my father was a uh commercial artist. Um he did uh he was a window trimmer when I was really young. He did uh, you know, the little vignettes on Main Street, the drugstore, the stationery store would have uh the Easter Bunny or Dancing Santa and and uh uh display and stuff. He worked in plastic, wood, metal, everything to do those kind of displays. Uh later on, um pre-franchise, if you were if you were gonna do a uh stationary store, a drug store, a liquor store, um you did it yourself. You know, you uh uh you you hired somebody to do the shelving, to do the graphics. Um it didn't come as a package like today in a franchise. So that's that's what my father did. Uh he he he mostly made those himself, shelving uh displays, a drugstore he'd make a um uh you know foam mortar and pestle and and the RX and those kind of things. So I was really exposed to that handcraft and a lot of variety. And I of course I wasn't the least bit interested because it was my dad. Uh but uh I got to I got to get all the old appliances to take apart. We made our toys. And again, there was no, I I think back on it, and there was no uh expectation or sense of of it was a chore. You know, it's just a fun thing to do. Uh also after school, I alternately uh was with my mom at the library and sat on the floor and read, um, or with my father uh at the uh it was called the National Planing Mill. And and they uh milled wood that came out of the Sierras, but they also made cabinets and things like that. And that's where his shop was, or even though he had a shop at home, that's where he did the heavier stuff. So I sat there in the sawdust and you know watched that unfold. So with that background, um when I uh uh got my first guitar to impress the girl, uh, and I was playing one day, sitting there playing, uh, waiting for her to come home, and uh kind of it's really an answer to a prayer about uh what I was gonna do. Um I thought, wow, somebody makes these. You know, if I could make a guitar, I could do everything I liked at one time.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

You know, the music, uh uh, the playing, the sound, and uh uh the whole idea. So I I'm I'm gonna get to your answer here, which is a long preface, sorry. Uh I went, I gotta figure out how to get started. And I had no fear of taking things apart, because I'd done that uh since uh I could remember. Uh and uh you put it back together the way you took it apart, right? I figured that's what I'll do. It was an old harmony, I think it was uh called an H150 maybe. It's kind of an OM shape, and it was all mahogany. Uh I bought it with paper out money, and it cost $47.50. And uh there was a brown one and a blonde one. I like the brown one, it was a mahogany top. So that I took that guitar apart to figure it out, and back to my mom, the rock star reference librarian. She said, you know, it would be a good idea to let's let's get some reference uh books and articles and uh show you how to put it back together. And there weren't any. There was nothing in print on uh guitar. There was some uh uh there was a little bit on classical, but there was a ton of stuff on the violin. Um the uh uh treatise on uh speculation uh diaries, uh know how-to because the the violin guilds kept secrets to the death. Um uh but from that I was able to get uh uh get a good good hand on a good start. So I I really credit my father and mother and Pop Lloyd.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

Who's Pop Lloyd?

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Pop Lloyd. Pop Lloyd uh had uh uh come to California um as infant in a conestoga wagon. He was that old, and he uh uh he taught me trail craft and um a way of thinking when I made stuff. So that that's my influences, and that there's the answer to your question. You know, how did I first get into guitar? I think that was your question.

SPEAKER_04 13:59

Yeah, when you fell in love with music and learning guitar. Yeah, but um, but yeah, the the library is an interesting thing. When I was younger, um my mom would drop me off at school and the library would be open, and I would just go through I'd find encyclopedia and start with A and work my way down is an interesting way to just kind of I've never thought about this topic and going through there.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

So being being surrounded by that sort of information, I'm sure, um, not only music instruments, but other things you might be interested in. That's pass the time, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah. I uh um I learned the Egyptian alphabet uh thinking I would be able to write and speak Egyptian because I was really into uh Egyptology and stuff. And we yeah, we had to wash our hands before we took the encyclopedia out to look at it. That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_04 14:47

Excellent wonderful story. Well, um I remember you talking to me about Stradivarious violins and you being a student of those and how you implement some of the bracing system. Um and and please correct me if I'm quoting you um if I'm if I'm not giving you uh unless you get it better than I don't know. Well I I believe you said something to the effect of when you look at the bracing system underneath the Stradivarius violin, it looks like there's no rhyme or reason to any of the um the lengths of the bracing. Uh a lot of times they're asymmetrical, and you would think that there'd be no rhyme or reason. And you connected that to when I went on my first Santa Cruz guitar factory tour, and you talk about just hitting the different quadrants at the top and then adjusting the bracing accordingly. So do you believe that um out in Cremona they had that figured out?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Um well, let's let's uh we all stand on the shoulders of giants, as I already said, and uh uh the lineage of the you know the school of Amate where Guinari Stratoveri, those guys came from, um would would have some kind of direct link back to the guy, the barefoot guy that found a deer jawbone and uh that whatever that stringy part of the deer is, yeah, right, and made a made a plucked instrument and the evolution uh you know going forward past that. So by the time we got to the 1700s, they were pretty sophisticated in what they did, and everything was purposeful. Uh uh, unlike us today, trying to build a custom guitar differently depending on what the player's style is and preferences are, the violin had a goal in its sound and a place in the in the ensemble, let's say. Um so yeah, they knew what they were doing, um, and they had they had a system, and they were they were unfortunately bound by uh strict tradition and the the edicts of the guild, right? Um and it was serious stuff. You could get shunned and drummed out of town.

SPEAKER_04 17:04

Or excommunicated?

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah, that's right. You know, that's Martin's story. Uh uh also cabinet builder. Yeah, that's right. Making uh boxes to ship violins. So uh yeah, and and you said correction. No, you you you got it, but let me put it in terms that uh people can relate to. Um we're we're 50 years old this year, and we wouldn't have lasted five years if we weren't doing something considerably different uh than uh the brand name makers. Um I mean seriously different. Uh otherwise they could have done it cheaper, faster, uh uh a bigger bullhorn, uh, every advantage in it. And what that was is what I learned, thanks to my mom, about the violin building that I thought I could translate to guitar making was that we were building the instrument for the for the most uh uh well for repeatability. That's the the buzzword in science for success. You can do it over again, right? And what that is, is to make an instrument that is um got the qualities of sound that everybody appreciates and can really move you. And those are they come from harmonicity. Um uh on a on a piano, when you when you pluck a note, you're creating a wavelength. You pluck another note, if that's complementary, um, they work together to sustain and develop rich, full, colorful overtones. So five notes in harmony can move you to propose to the person next to you or go on the street and march for a cause. I mean, really can. Uh five notes at random picked it, or not even pick, uh, picked it randomly like throw rocks at the piano. Uh unlikely they would be in harmony. They could be everything from totally discordinate where the wavelengths cancel each other out and you get a noise, but it dies quickly with no overtones. Um uh or anything in between.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

Well, what's interesting about um, or the I'd say one of the major differences would be that by and large the violin is monophonic and the guitar is polyphonic. So not only do you have to get one string harmonious, you've got to find the the uh the average of you know how you're gonna make all of them up and down the neck. Like that's gotta be uh I like another dimension that that's uh difficult to tackle.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Well, I left everybody in the air there. I didn't tie these things together. Uh what I so what I learned uh from the violin tradition is that the the the the true secret of Strativaria, if you will, uh was instead of making an instrument by repeating dimensions, which both science and uh uh guitar makers uh uh tried to do and do forever. If you make it uh exactly the same size, you could should get the same result. But wood is so varying in its density that if you cut ten pieces out of the same board the same size, they would ring at random frequencies. It'll be coincidence if they if they were complementary. Uh so the violin was assembled uh with precise frequencies. The components had a frequency and it was put together in harmony. And that gave it the sustain, which is ironic in a boat instrument sustain, uh but uh and also the the complexity, the depth, uh, the uh sonority, the um uh the rich, full, colorful sound that you want. So I thought that's what you did with a guitar, uh, and that's how I started building. Uh uh didn't take long before I realized that nope, um guitar sounds just fine. You really can't make a bad sound of guitar unless you crack it, right? You can't make an exceptional guitar except by chance or intent. And so when we go to the certainly the mass producers, the commercial brands, um, they're they're like throwing rocks at a piano. Uh they sound okay, but that one that everybody gravitates to at the festival, you gotta hear this guitar, that's the one that just happened to have the most components in tune with themselves, uh, by by chance. Right? Now uh uh I'm not dissing anybody. Martin actually had had some really good stuff going on. In the older days. You know, they carried the uh European tradition. And they did understand a lot of that. That's totally impractical in production. You know, you want to hit a reasonable price target. You can't do that stuff. Uh uh, you sell it through marketing.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Uh uh Celebrity Association, uh lifestyle choice, which is the big trend now. Um, you know, play this guitar, feel good, get the girl, the sun comes out, life's grand. Right. You know, that's what you want. So anyway, that's what we do differently. Um the uh and the difference between that and the violin tradition is we're not bound by tradition. Uh so we can adapt. Let me do this. There's two parts of sound I'm going to talk about. One is uh personal choices, no right or wrong. That's really well represented by your sound system, your stereo. You have knobs and sliders that allow you to make it uh right for for what your taste is and what you're listening to. Um if there was a right or wrong, you wouldn't get knobs and sliders, you'd get a box of presets. Uh so those are the personal choices. Uh volume, tone, EQ, uh, etc. Now we can control those in the build of a guitar uh by choices of wood, how we shape the braces, uh uh and on and on and on, and get either what a player wants or what we know they want based on the genre that they're playing. Uh bluegrass players want a more predominant bass in the EQ. Uh uh finger cell jazz, a classical player, would hate that. They'd want a nice even EQ. They'll decide when to accentuate a note. Uh and then there on the other part of sound is the stuff that everyone appreciates, uh, not on an intellectual level, again, on the uh the uh dinosaur brain level that just moves you. And that is the um uh rich, full, long-lasting everything at once. The stuff that makes you feel good, right? Um it's not conceptual, uh you know, it's really a physical thing. Um and that's achieved by either throwing enough rocks at a piano that you get a chord occasionally, and uh out of a hundred guitars you get a couple that people are gonna gravitate to at the festival, uh, the rest will be appreciated, but some of them are gonna just be spectacular, right? Uh so we do the former, uh, we build uh largely custom guitars, and we're going to uh give the player what they want in the uh uh uh personal choices, but we're gonna assure everybody gets that rich, full, uh uh spectacular sound.

SPEAKER_04 25:07

Okay, I have a two-part question piggybacking on that, like you just said. Um the first question would be do you feel like guitar builders in the early 1900s were working with a better supply of wood, a more superior supply of wood, or even back to 1700s, a more superior supply of wood? And if so, do you believe that your uh job is more difficult in tuning it up? Like, do you believe you have to do you have to do less work on your end if you just get a beautiful supply of wood? Or does it differ from batch to batch?

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Um man, my my my brain races here with a lot of stuff. Uh well there was there was more of there was when we started our business in 1976, there was half as many people on the planet. Is that sobering fact? That's why that's right. Yeah, that's incredible. When I was in uh like around second grade, it was half of that. We there's a lot of us, and we're and we're doing it every day. So uh um it's not like more wood is made back then than it is today, uh, but the demand was much less, but also the distribution was a lot less sophisticated. So I think that uh uh us as California guitar makers have access to more exquisite quality stuff than a guy in uh uh Cremona might have had uh in the 1700s. Now uh I I qualify that. Cremona was uh was the center of instrument making, it had a long, long history, and so it would have had a distribution network and a supply network. Uh but you can see what I'm saying is like the good wood has always been there. It's how can you access it, right? So for us, as you know, we use uh uh I use the a blanket term, we only use responsibly harvested wood. That's the that's to explain in a simple sentence to people that that were paying attention to the environment. The selfish part behind that is old wood sounds better. And the and these guys knew that. Uh the uh violin builders in the 1700s.

SPEAKER_04 27:33

Okay, um let me interrupt you there, just for for people who are who are just getting into music. Why does old wood sound better?

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Um, there's l there's beautiful, fun, fun, fun folklore uh that's nonsensical, but they're great stories. Um uh here's the here's the simple uh simple thing here, uh, without going into uh uh uh acoustic physics terms, um, is that uh the the living tree uh circulates the nutrition in the res the tree sap and it flows down to the tiniest capillaries like in a human being. When the life is arrested, that flow stops, and the uh uh material is no longer vital and part of a living organism. Um, and what was the light, the the low viscosity that allowed it to flow through the tree begins to harden. And it's not crystallization as sexy as that sounds, it's polymerization like glue drying, right? So the the the longer the wood is from the living tree, the more the resins polymerize, and the harder they get and the more resonant they are. So it's really simple. Um when uh let's say uh you know ABC uh a guitar production company that makes a thousand guitars a day, um uh purchases wood that's cut from a tree and processed, they could build sick in six weeks, and it would be stable, but it's still got sticky stuff in it. And it would take a long time, if ever, uh for that to truly become uh its full potential. So most guitars that are made today, even in some boutique levels, uh will get better sounding over time as that material polmerizes. We cheat.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

We buy all wood, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah, we go we both reclamation uh could be a dead standing tree, it could be uh parts of a uh a building, you know, whatever. Uh but we use old wood so we get a really head, a really great head start and that resonance of the wood. So that's a really big factor in why old wood is more resonant and why old guitars sound better than new ones. But that's only a third of the story. Um the second one is when you make a guitar, there's the potential to create a lot of tension. Um, and the faster, the more efficient you're trying to make it, the more tension you'll build into it. So think of uh think of bending sides uh, you know, out of their natural position. Uh there's gonna be a lot of memory. It wants to go back to that shape. So the faster you're going, the more likely you're gonna have sides that that uh aren't really set in that shape. They want to spring back, but they can go into a mold uh still warm, maybe even still damp, uh, and the guitar can be assembled. And you can really visualize the tension in there. Now that's gonna take a long time, if ever, to relax enough to uh for the guitar to be fully resonant. And you know, probably at the uh cost of the uh angle of the neck and things like that. But um all aspects of um the guitar, the more it's forced together, the more tension, uh the more restriction on resonance. So uh with the um you know the violin tradition and with the tradition that we follow, we're eliminating as much tension or avoiding creating as much tension as possible. And it's kind of anti-efficiency, right? It takes more time to do that. But those two things, using the old wood with pulmarized resins and putting less tension in it gives us an older sounding guitar to start with. Now, the third one is the most popular and most often talked about. Uh I call it de-damping because it's a translation of the French violin makers trade. Uh uh, if you ring a bell and you put your finger on it, that dampens dampens or damps the sound. Um uh if you take your finger off, you've de-dampened it, right? So uh the the in the violin tradition, let's say you had you had a uh an apprentice, somebody's kid that's an intension servant, right? And and uh if they went to school after school, they sit on a stool and they and they flex the top uh at a prescribed area. Um and the analogy I was given by Roger Simonoff is that um imagine you're watching a movie and you're eating ice cream uh or a popsicle, and you get done and you just start twisting, you know, uh bending the the stick, the little wooden stick. And when the movie's over, the stick's a lot more flexible. You didn't break any fibers, but uh uh it became more flexible and therefore uh more resonant. Wasn't dried out. Um so uh uh the the the apprentice flexing that top in the in the right places would make the violin more responsive right away. Um there's uh uh there's some credence to the idea if you um uh put it in front of speakers while you're at work, it would do this process of de-damping. Um if you hooked a little device to it that just made it hum. Uh but the physics behind that is only if it it excites the guitar at the uh natural frequency of the airspace or the top itself. Um when that's excited, uh it will do some uh de-dampening effect and it'll make the guitar more responsive. Uh uh there's a lot of the factors that depend on how much. So for what we do, uh building with old wood, uh doing a relaxed assembly, we've covered the large part of why older guitars sound better in our new build, and we leave the de-dampening to the player themselves to do that. Now, there's commercial stuff out there to do that, and I thought of that years ago. Um, and this inspiration came from uh Simonov again. He took uh back when we had Radio Shack, uh, you could buy a little uh motor uh that had a weight off center, you know, so instead of spinning, humming like a sewing machine, it would go wonk, wonk, wonk, wonk. And you hook that up to a toy train transformer, which is like a frequency generator, and you can turn it, uh, let's say we cable tie that to the strings of a mandolin or guitar, and you turn that frequency until the instrument just howls. I mean, really frighteningly howls. And that's when it's matching the airspace andor the frequency of the top. And uh that's gonna do something. Um that that'll loosen up the instrument, make it more responsive, and you know, 48, 72 hours out, you probably will notice a difference. You but I also notice a brace come loose, you know, or uh some uh expose some other weakness. And that's why I didn't want to go into it commercially because of the liability of the things you don't know. But there's there's there that's science-backed explanations for why a guitar sounds older, um, I mean sounds better as it ages, generally. You know, with that.

SPEAKER_04 35:59

And then it's uh it's kind of uh you're accelerating what an old guitar that's been played for decades.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

Right. Does it just the the vibrations that move the two of those two of those three will happen whether it's uh uh sunk in the ocean in outer space or on a shelf or in an instrument being played. It doesn't take the vibration to polymerize the resins or relax the assembly, right? Uh the dedamping aspect of it uh does. It would be playing or exciting the instrument, the frequency this natural frequency.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

Gotcha. So SpaceX could be coming after you if they send their wood to outer space and bring it back on.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Oh man. You know, I've uh I thought a lot about this stuff, and uh uh it's not Luthery business, it's science, you know. And again, science, repeatability, strict control, and all that. And I'm just not cut out for that. I want to build guitars.

SPEAKER_04 36:59

Well, and what's what's difficult about that is applying science to metallurgy is a very different animal than applying science to something that used to have a or still does have a DNA that was near a creek or got more sun than the other one, or and even you said, the same tree, like you said, in different sections will have different sounds and different mineral content, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:20

It's it's uh fascinating. Now, you could approach this uh as a scientist and and do the calculations to arrive at a conclusion to make a better guitar, but whoa, that's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_04 37:33

It seems it seems largely like reverse engineering. Like, oh, I made that, I made I made that work, but how did I do that? And and then you find out why after you've done it, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah, the luthier way. Oops, too much, oops, too little, then, and oh now that's right, I'll do it again next time. Like it's that repeatability. So uh I I'm I'm just as strongly I feel about responsible harvest, I feel about uh uh uh information. We don't keep secrets, we're open source, and I wanted before I pass, I wanted to capture uh what I learned uh from the violin tradition and 55 years of experience uh in controlling the the sound of an instrument and put it into a scientific vocabulary that could be understood and develop the mechanisms that could measure that. And we're there. We've done that. It's not Luthery stuff, and you know this story, and it's the scope's too big for this conversation. Uh, but we worked in partnership with the Naval Postgraduate School at Acoustic Physics in Monterey and Stanford University's acoustic program. Um uh because uh everybody loves guitars and it's not a commercial pursuit. You know, it it's something for everybody. And uh it's it's able to uh take a piece of wood and determine before you build with it what its potential is, right? Not to find the best piece of wood, because that's fallacious. Uh as long as the wood falls into the uh properties of of uh a good kind of wood for uh uh conducting sound, um, there's not good and bad, there's different, just as there are different playing styles that go along. So we're determining what the uh potential uh properties, not qualities, properties are on this piece of wood to match it with the player, right? So the the people that uh the companies that are out there uh doing science to determine the best piece of wood for the guitar, that's their opinion. That's the best piece of wood. Uh there's one company that's done that, and uh uh uh they promote a uh uh they promote a more flexible top, um, and flexibility promotes a bass. And a bassier guitar appeals to a majority of people, and it's kind of like catch-up on food. It's pretty dramatic, but it's catch-up.

unknown 40:15

You know.

SPEAKER_04 40:16

So if you were putting it in the library, you have the classical musicians and then you have the hit like Neanderthals musicians.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Yeah, bass is uh it has its place, it's a nice thing. But you've seen that there's people you they they pick a guitar up in a store and they play the E-string, boom, you know, oh that's a good one. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 40:36

Um so I I'm sorry, I I've strayed. Yeah, no, but uh, but it it is that's gotta be tough because uh you can't and well well, first of all, you've got some of the brightest, best and the brightest when you're outside. That's right. Smarter than me. Well, it it's gotta be tough because you can't do a DNA test on the wood. I'm sorry, you can't really do a DNA test to get that result because the same DNA in that tree will be different in different sections. So they're looking at mass or and and moisture and and I guess sap content. Is that are those some of the metrics they use?

SPEAKER_01 41:10

You know, and again, that's gonna change uh the polymerization and so forth. So uh I I could I could choose a career in science, uh scientific inquiry, um uh, but that's not who I am or what I have to offer to make the world a better place, you know. Uh somebody else got always gonna do the math for me uh to pull that off. Uh what again, uh as a guitar builder with the goal of controlling the sound, making the best guitar for that one player, um, is uh we have enough information historically to follow uh to get the results. I don't have to do those the calculations all the way from the beginning to arrive at that conclusion. You know, you do this recipe, and there we got it. Uh no, you just do it until it sounds right, and that recipe exists. But you didn't have to go through that whole ordeal to get there. But to be able to communicate with other people, you need that data, and that's what we're doing with it, the scientific vocabulary and the uh mechanism to uh to measure it.

SPEAKER_04 42:25

It's gotta be exciting to be part of scientific. Oh, it's really that that's sort of research.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

And there's just not enough time. Uh uh Mark Rowell, uh, that we started working with, um, because it came for the guitars, you know, great universal unit of exchange, and he's a graduate student, and uh years later now he's a professor at MIT, so we don't get as much of his time as we would before. But um uh that was just it was heady to be able to make that progress and not get stuck on the I mean the the uh enemy of science is opinion and pride, right? And uh uh awful lot of that out there. Okay, I'm gonna calm down. What's the next question?

SPEAKER_04 43:15

Actually, I think now would be a good time to uh do a coffee break, kind of sit down, and maybe we can we can start we can start talking about building in your uh in your dad's garage. Great, presumably using his tools and making the jump from there to starting your own per uh your own company. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Great, I love that story. Plus, it allows me to give uh credit word due.

SPEAKER_04 43:36

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

We will be back.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Musicians, we are Danville Music, your local source with the best selection of high quality musical instruments and accessories. Open seven days a week right here at Danville Music. Danvilmusic.com, your local music store.

SPEAKER_04 43:55

And we are back with Richard Hoover. We're gonna we talked about a lot of the build I And the concepts that you learned. And uh I guess we're gonna take it from where the rubber meets the road when you start from uh tinkering in a garage to going to a full-scale production, and that's a huge jump. So tell me how that came about.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

That is. Um I don't remember a time where I would have uh gone, this is what I want to do for a living, you know, or this is my career path. Um it was uh uh I was motivated by uh I said the realization I could do everything I liked at once. I could make stuff, I could experiment, um, and most importantly, um what the guitar did for me is allowed me to express uh uh uh values, feelings, concepts that I don't think I could have done otherwise. Um both uh uh through the music uh and what that evoked emotionally in me and others, uh, and the inspiration to add put lyrics to songs and tell stories. Um it was a really volatile time politically, um and uh a lot of that message was coming across in popular music. Um, I mean to today's a wild time indeed, uh, but that was um we had a close call in uh uh the later 60s. So the idea of uh being able to make that tool for others uh to allow them to do the same thing, it just felt like uh it felt like the right thing to do, uh a way to make the world a better place. And um I I began, I had uh two really important mentors. Um I mentioned Pop Lloyd that taught me how to stay alive in the woods and you know, uh really a second father for me. Uh but um Jim Patterson and Bruce McGuire were both uh local men that uh were guitar builders that I found out just through the network. You know, this is before uh videos or internet. Uh uh Bruce was a loan officer at a uh uh in the trade they called them mouse houses, where you go and you take your wedding ring or your pink slip to your car and get a loan. You know, quotation marks. My guitar was stolen, and I I got a loan to uh replace the guitar, and I met uh Bruce McGuire, who is a manager of uh the finance company, and uh uh I bought my Epiphone Texan, 64 probably, uh, from Union Grove Music here in town, and they said they didn't finance, but I could go down the street and uh apply for a loan uh with uh with beneficial finance. And uh uh uh Bruce and part of the application asked me what the loan was for, and I told him I was a professional musician, my guitar is so I needed to replace it. He goes, Oh, I make guitars. And uh uh I gave you the uh preamble here about how I wanted to make guitars. Uh I took my guitar apart, but in trying to progress past that, it was pretty slow going. And uh when Bruce said, Oh, well, I make guitars, and he showed me a newspaper clipping, uh, a local story about them, and I went, Great, what night of the week is best for me to come over, you know, and learn. And that's truly how it started. He was a classical builder, uh uh a student of uh Art Overholzer, who wrote a definitive book on classical making. Uh, and they both uh taught guitar making at uh uh Chico. Uh I think Chico was a community college uh at the time. And um uh and he said, okay, you know, come over on Wednesday night and we'll get started. As a classical maker, of course, there's a lot of things that are not uh in common with the steel string. Uh so we hit some dead ends. But I'd also heard about James Patterson, uh, who'd written a book on uh uh Mother Pearl Inlay, and uh um I called him and he said, sure, come on over. So between those two, uh I built my first guitar and uh learned the basics, and I'm extremely grateful to both of them, both uh exceptional men. Uh when I ask each of them individually what I can do in return uh for them, can I do uh can I uh build a fence, paint your barn, um whatever, both of us said, no, i and they said really close to the same thing, which was no, that's not necessary. Uh, but you can do the same for others, you know, the same spirit that I did it to you. And I'm still stuck with that. That's all that's an obligation, you know, to be open source uh and uh uh uh help inspire others to um share. And uh guitar making in the last 50 years, steel string making around the world, the level of uh sophistication and quality has risen incredibly due to our cooperation with each other.

SPEAKER_04 49:53

What do you think is the most important technology to come out in the last 50 years for guitar for guitars?

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Well, I would say not technology, but philosophy. Instead of the guild system, which was um probably probably had real good reasons for it, you know, uh, that you couldn't do it commercially unless you were in the club, you couldn't make a violin, a guitar, or a violin shipping box for that matter, unless you were in the guild, and they had uh strict rules about how you did it, and it just wasn't possible to do it independently. Uh that's why uh uh Martin got kicked out of Mark Kukirchen uh uh in Germany, uh now old Eastern Germany, uh, because he was making guitars instead of shipping boxes, I understand from their literature, right? Uh um so is is that breakthrough where people were not only uh sharing, but not begrudgingly, excitedly, and this tied into um there was a uh uh uh ongoing renaissance of uh we could call it arts and crafts, but it was people making their own stuff uh that really, you know, we could say started in the 60s. Uh it really blossomed in the 60s. Uh uh part of it was a rebellion uh to overcome the myth of specialization. Uh you could you could rebuild your own car engine, you could make your own shoes, you could make a guitar, you could make pottery. Um, and and just like an explosion of that uh went on. And so we had a lot of uh uh young people starting out um in different trades, a lot of people celebrating their 50th anniversary right now from that. And so uh the guitar makers uh that that I know, um, you know, it seems like there used to be about six nationally, and now there's got to be 600,000 uh with it. But as we as we sought each other out and met each other, we were super eager to accelerate our progress by sharing info. You know, hey, guess what I figured out? Or where do you find that that brown tape that I saw in a picture you were using for your binding? And with only a couple exceptions from people you'll never ever hear of, uh, were they uh uh not sharing information like that. So it it was uh uh it's a real renaissance um and really, really refreshing. Um uh technology-wise, um the biggest influences are the internet, you know, the ability to communicate and tell your story. Um when we started out, um, I don't want to overlook my original partners. So I, you know, I started out on this on my own. And answer to another prayer here is I remember this thought process of um uh uh I I'd studied the violin stuff, I'd you know, eaten up everything I could find, but I still couldn't really apply that. It's gonna take practice. And uh I never considered myself a selfish person, uh, in that I want it for myself, more uh uh self-centered because I didn't know better. You know, the universe, the reference point is me, and the universe uh goes around me. And uh uh so you know I think we all have that to some degree, especially American boys. Uh but I remember uh as uh you know my early year early teen years, kind of thinking that practices were free people that weren't as smart as me. You know, just show me, leave me alone, I'll get it. Um and uh uh when I came to the realization, um, this came from playing baseball, by the way, as I was uh uh involved in a triple play, which is you know relatively rare. And at the end I went, you know, we can we did that because we practiced, practiced, practiced. We did it over and over and over again. And I went, maybe that's what people have been telling me, you know, right? Uh uh apply yourself, practice, and you'll get better at it. Um, and I realized there's some things that I had become an expert at, or was becoming an expert at because of repetition. And with that, I went, God, I could be 30 years old before I figure this out. And I went, I got I if I worked with a team, we could accelerate our progress, we could make more, so it would allow us to experiment, and uh we could master things by putting enough time in to become really, really good at it. Doesn't mean you have to be uh do fretwork or finish your whole life. Uh it means you you can do it until you get really good and then move into move to another aspect. So it's ironic as a guitar maker, um what what's that message from the universe? Was I stretching the truth? Uh uh uh as a guitar maker individually, um it was gonna take a long time. But if I work with other people, we can accelerate that learning curve and we truly can become expert at what we do. That's still how we do it here. Uh somebody gets the opportunity to become the best in the world at what they do, and they can move on to something else, you know, and get it. So those uh uh uh I had uh my shop at that time, um, I was in a house probably built around the turn of the last century, um, and uh uh it had a uh old carriage house in the back, and that that's my shop. And uh I was doing repair to pay the rent because nobody knew me as a maker. And I knew uh uh people really well at Union Grove music, including two of the guys that were salesmen and did repair there. And uh one Will Davis that since passed uh came came to my shop and said, I'd I'd like to work with you. You know, I I'd like to uh I'd like to join you. And um that uh that sounded like answer to a prayer. It's like great, that's a good. And then Bruce Ross, who's still local here, uh uh came really shortly thereafter. Uh I can't remember if they'd spoken to each other previously, but I knew them both. And uh uh Bruce Bruce's uh uh appeal was was the same. Let's throw in together. Uh let's make the best guitar in the world. And uh uh it sounded great. They they thought it'd be a great idea if they just moved in my shop and started. Um and uh uh they had some family money they would invest, and I would uh I would uh dedicate my tools uh and get a $500 credit for teaching them how to make guitars. And um uh I thought, you know, I could do that for a couple years, learn uh what I needed to learn and then move on. Uh the um, but the thing is I I wanted to keep my day job. I wanted to keep my tools, my own shop, and do this separately. So our deal was as best of my recollection, that they both put up $2,000 each. Um I was I was had the uh I could take up to two years to pay my share, but again, the credit $500 for teaching them how to build, so I know $1,500 in two years. And uh uh off we went, um naive as heck, but doing something nobody had done before, uh, which was not to be the next Martin, uh, but to follow the the principles of the violin tradition and build custom guitars for people as a team.

SPEAKER_04 59:06

Would you say you had a foundation for a specific model of any acoustic guitar that you that that you were very fond of that you use as a starting point? Yes. And what what model would that be?

SPEAKER_01 59:17

Um, well, this is the folly of youth uh uh and the self-centered perspective. Um, I thought we could make the guitar that everybody in the world would realize was the guitar they needed. So uh at that time, uh with rare exception, um, it had to be a dreadnought for a grown-up. Um even an OM was considered uh maybe something a retired music teacher might play and have at home, uh, but uh certainly not uh uh a real guitar for a guy. Uh was a dreadnought. However, what the music that was uh breaking then, we we call maybe Wyndham Hill, uh uh Tacoma label, uh starting with people like John Fahy, then going into Will Ackerman, uh uh who started Windham Hill, um Daniel Hick, Robbie Basho, uh, and it was mostly open tuning finger style. And the last thing we needed was a big boomy, woofy, bass-heavy instrument, but that's what they're playing, right? Uh so we decided the first guitar was gonna be a Trojan horse. It was gonna look totally familiar, you know, the the dreadnought like Martin made, uh, but the dangerous stuff was on the inside. So it was built to be more evenly balanced and EQ, not so based heavy. Uh a wider neck for more facility, more like classical, and um uh stylistically, uh, of course, our own. We did a uh a really wide saddle so that you could get proper intonation, and some nice innovative stuff that was uh it was too different. Um so first we're we're we're going uphill in the snow both ways to work, just by doing by people making guitar was really unusual. Martin Gild Gibson made guitars, but people, nah, you know, and there's no internet. So when uh when we get an inquiry from that wasn't a part of the pyramid scheme of you sell to a friend and then their friend comes in, that runs out pretty quick. Uh so people um in response to uh Old Fretz magazine, which was part of Guitar Player International, uh uh maybe twice a year we could afford to run an ad about that big. And we get an inquiry and we'd send photographs and a handwritten letter uh to do that promotion. So uh I realized I I I skipped a lot of stuff there. In answering your question, the uh uh uh the thing from me as uh just trying to figure out myself, doing repairs to pay the rent, and uh uh I was also doing uh making weaving supplies and looms, uh, but making my own guitars and working with Bruce McGuire. Uh we went in partners uh on the repair, but he was career-minded. He uh eventually became a probate judge, but he was an assessor, manager of a of a loan company. He and he had four kids. That it wasn't the right thing for him. Right. Yeah. So um I was doing the things I needed to uh uh pay my way and trying to learn guitars at the same time. The big break there in taking it seriously is when I had uh partners to be responsible for, right? And then it became a business with the obligations and and uh so forth. Um and uh it was a great choice.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

A great choice been really, really, really rewarding. So anyway, I got in the the my uh gratitudes to the people that helped me uh get started and get going there. Uh like with anything, as you focus your interest, a whole new world opens up. Even prior to the internet, um uh uh there was a uh right about the same time the Guild of American Luthiers uh started up in Tacoma, Washington uh as uh uh uh power numbers, you know, a group of people that could share information, maybe get deals on our discounts on larger quantities of stuff to share. So things began to open up pretty quick. And uh uh as I said earlier, everybody was so hungry for information that the idea of having secrets was kind of creepy. And there was a couple of those people, like uh I it was just as we broke, I said, you haven't heard of them, they didn't stick around very long. But for the most part, uh the idea of sharing an open source was really took off.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:41

I also think it shows a confidence in your uh competence. Yeah, because you you say any people I know that are top of the game are usually more than willing to share what they've done and what they've learned. Because they they have the comfort knowing that like I can I can give you the same recipe, but there's I agree. There's a little bit of magic in there, and and if you don't believe in magic, then what's the point, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:06

I I completely agree. And to your original question, which is what's the the breakthrough here, um, I was saying uh uh the internet, but before that the uh blossoming of of the sharing of information, and then uh uh uh computer numerically controlled machinery, um, which uh we really were pioneers in because of our proximity to uh uh the tech uh right over the hill. We had people come over that were involved in that, that would see me sitting there with jewelers tools doing inlay and going, haven't you heard? You can do that automatically. So uh it took some thought, uh, some value. Value assessment. Were we selling out? Were we uh exchanging the tradition of handcraft and doing better by taking longer uh for with a robot?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

Well, I remember I also remember you uh one and again in one of the tours that you gave. Um it's tradition is good. You you learn from you know you learn from the people who came before you, but there's also a a longevity and and injury issues with doing everything by hand. And I I think people miss the point. I think there's a there's a uh nostalgia or a or a sex appeal to like everything must be handmade, you know, the imperfections like you're already being built, these guitars are being built by somebody who's not perfect. Yeah, and so so anything you can do to alleviate those sort of injuries is a good thing, and keeping the you know, keeping you able to produce for longer.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:58

Yeah, you you recall really well. Uh uh the re what I came to is um uh when I started out, we didn't really understand as we do today the nature of repetitive stress. You know, uh uh uh people that did clerical work uh or tight work like that just disappeared, you know. Um and uh uh you could be genetically predisposed either to avoid it or to get it quickly. Um and but it's career-ending for people like that. So what I came to with this was um uh uh real simple uh uh fork in the road. If it requires judgment and artistry, uh that's what makes us different, and that's where we shine. And those things have to be done by hand, uh because otherwise you start limit limiting your ability to customize or whatever. Um but the things that required were repetitive and the same each time, you're you're having people pay for your inefficiency, and you're risking the injury, which is most important. Um and if you're in a position where you're uh uh pay employing somebody to do something, it's just plain unethical to have them do something. You profit off having them hurt themselves. So we uh uh uh of course back then um a $90,000 machine was total fantasy. You know, I don't think we didn't uh we didn't gross that, you know, in in five years yet. So uh but getting into that technology allowed us um to be able to concentrate uh more on the things that were important to be done by hand uh and save ourselves. Inlay specifically. Like I cut out a few thousand of our logo by hand. And there's a time I would have defended that as better, but um again, one of my most important lessons in life is to realize that the cost of pride uh was a good return on investment.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:22

It comes for poor destruction, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

Yeah, and it yeah, that's right. And it's the you know, especially in the American boy disease, uh pride, and that me thinking it was better because I did it was fallacious. Uh and I was doing that at our customers' expense. So it's a beautiful thing. It's another tool, and as long as you realize where its place is, that's great. Uh back when we were talking about the difference between uh Lutheran and manufacturing, uh, it really comes down to that. Uh uh to be efficient manufacturer, most of our consumer goods come from those machines. And uh the secret to efficient manufacturing is to make your components uh consistently accurately dimension so they only fit one way in assembly systems, and somebody can walk watch a video and do the job, right? Uh and uh the guitar you get from that is um serviceable, you know. Uh uh you can think it sounds fine, and you can write a song of change of the world. You get value. Uh what we do is a little bit different, you know, to go to the extreme. So I really ran with your question there. I'll let you uh focus me here.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:45

Well, how about this is fun? Oh, yeah, no, this is fun. And um it was there uh maybe multiple points to where you got recognition from an artist or from a publication. What were what were some of the you think the biggest shots in the arm for Santa Cruz guitar?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

Uh sure, I I uh you you almost answered the question yourself. Um so we have uh my uh uh uh Will Davis, the one of the original partners, uh had diabetes um and uh uh had to have a pretty strict diet, a pretty strict regimen. And uh I think we paid ourselves $150 a month. It just didn't work for him. Uh he's he went about a year and a half and it was really taking a toll on him, and he had to we had to buy him out. He had to have us buy him out. Um, and I'm uh I'm uh extremely grateful for his contribution. Really important today, part of the spirit of the company comes from him. Uh so then it was uh Bruce and I for uh uh another uh oh maybe 12 years. I think we worked together a total from the very beginning, about 13 years. Um and uh the uh breakthroughs, um I had worked with uh Daryl Anger, who's a uh uh violinist of of international note, um making mandolins. Uh I'd uh ridden my bike up uh to Mission Street to get some lunch, and one of the old Victorians that's uh the basement's the ground floor, uh, and the windows stick up above ground, there's mandolin parts hanging in the window. And I knocked on the door for a few days until somebody answered, and I found out they're making mandolins, so I joined in with them and and uh met Daryl. We became really good friends, and then Daryl uh went off to try out for a band in Mill Valley. It turned out to be the David Grisman Quintet, and he got the job, and uh Tony Rice was the guitar player. So Daryl brought Tony to my house to meet me. Uh by then I transitioned into Santa Cruz Guitar Company, and we'd made a total of four guitars, and we met Tony Rice. And Tony had a famous old uh Martin Herringbone from 1934 uh that just wasn't working in his uh the jazz phrasings and stuff he was doing in the quintet. Uh it was just big, boomy bassy. Uh he did something with more mid-range and trouble, a little more sophisticated scope. And uh he saw our guitar. He was can, you know, we convinced him, I convinced him that we were the ones and we should make his guitar. So Tony was was really well known in the bluegrass uh um realm. I didn't know who he was, I didn't know what bluegrass was. Uh and uh but in making a guitar for him, we started to get calls from people that were uh, you know, can you make me a guitar just like you did for Tony? And being a brilliant marketer at the time, I said, no, that's not what we do. We're custom makers. We'll make the guitar you want. Uh that that we just happened to make one for Tony. And people, oh well, thanks anyway. You know, finally realized, wait a minute, you know, there's nothing wrong with making a a bluegrass treadnought. And we introduced the Tony Rice model. That's you know, some people only know us by that. That was a big deal.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:46

And and uh for the listeners at home, the Tony Rice model has has a larger sound hole. Yeah that I believe was a was a uh guitar that was modified, perhaps uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:58

Tony had two different stories on that, and there's so much folklore. Uh it wasn't done as a a tonal modification, you know. Uh in fact, uh uh Clarence White that owned it before Tony, which gives it a lot of uh uh appeal to, um, was pretty rough on it. Because it was an old it was a uh pawn shop junker, you know, and assembled of uh uh different different parts and things like that. Today it's priceless.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

Yeah. But anyway, uh when he wanted us to make a guitar that looked like that, because of f he wanted the familiarity, but he wanted changes in the sound of it. Um, I thought I better have an answer for why that sound hall is big. So the physics of it, uh quote Hermann Helmholtz, uh one of the uh uh seminal and uh uh world-changing acoustic physicists back in the early part of the last century, um, did this uh experimentation on on little bottles with different apertures. And the conclusion was that that the size of the aperture affects the uh fundamental frequency of the chamber. And the larger the aperture, uh the higher the frequency of the chamber. In a guitar, that means the larger the sound hole, the higher the frequency of the air chamber, and more accentuation in volume uh in the EQ of the treble and mid-range. So you have a boomy bassy guitar, enlarging the sound hole will bring up mid-range and treble and compensate for that. And uh totally contrary to logic, you know, you think you did the opposite. We do likewise when we make a really small body guitar that would be uh more prone towards uh treble, uh we'll make the sound hole smaller to boost the bass.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:07

Isn't that cool? So uh uh back to your question, how did we get off the ground? Um we were uh uh at that time we were we were doing um a lot of repair. We we worked four days a week on guitars, one day I worked on repair, and we kind of did that independently to uh pay ourselves. Um uh and uh we start, you know, officially we started in 76, uh about June of 76, but uh we were really making our first guitars in 77. Uh by 83, uh the uh acoustic guitar was becoming extinct. MIDI, disco, uh our our uh clientele were our age, getting out of college, maybe having kids, paying student loans, and there was a really bad recession in 83, the world was ending. Um we we uh we did a school for a while, started a school, and then one day uh I go to the mailbox and there's a little maroon envelope, and uh the return address says E. Clapton, London, England. They go, well, this could be uh Irvin Clapton the plumber, you know, we don't know. And sure enough, it's a handwritten letter from Eric Clapton asking for uh uh a guitar scene in a literally ad about that big that showed the guitar and our uh phone number and address that we put in Fred's magazine. Uh and it was a big deal to come up with that money. And he'd seen that and he ordered guitar and he gave us uh a phone number to call, called Diana. And I think we spent the first major part of the morning trying to figure out how to make an international call. And uh Diana said, Did you get Mr. Clapton's order? So when we made a guitar for Eric Clapton, we went from being uh for some people uh the best guitar makers on the west side of Santa Cruz uh uh or an enigma. I mean, seriously, people would play our guitar and go, God, that's spectacular. That's the best guitar I've ever heard. But what would my friends think if I bought that instead of a Martin, right? So once Clapton had a guitar, we're okay. And uh what model was that, by the way? Oh, it was the FTC, really still innovative. It's it's a conventional flat top guitar, but the back's carved like an arch top. So it has really focused projection. Um uh surprisingly so. So out in front of it, it's really loud, you know, and and behind it, not so much. Or we're able to focus the sound uh out. It's supposed to be uh uh uh uh a professional guitar for impressing the audience.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:30

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:31

Um so anyway, that that was a huge breakthrough. I wouldn't have admitted it beforehand, because I would have been prideful. Uh but uh uh uh I gave credit to Tony Rice, but Eric Clapton, everybody's mother knew who Eric Clapton was, yeah. So that was a very, very big breakthrough. Uh I I did I mentioned Fretz magazine, but I didn't give credit. Uh Fretz Magazine was a brainchild of Roger Simonoff, who published Pickin' Magazine in New York. Uh um Fretz became, uh was launched by a guitar player uh in Cupertino, and Roger came out from uh the East with his family uh to run Fretz Magazine. And uh uh uh Roger came over to visit us, and um I think he probably gets credit for the one person that did the most to put us on the world stage because here's a magazine dedicated to acoustic string music, for heaven's sakes, that we couldn't afford to advertise in, but we got great editorial reviews on guitars, uh uh involved in stories that had a readers' poll, and uh actually for several years we got uh uh the best guitar maker in the world. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:56

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

Uh so great. That was the those were the breaks that uh got us there. And uh working seven days a week, you know, 60 hours and that too.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:09

Right. Oh yeah. That's that's fantastic. You know, I I remember with Danville music when I wanted to get Santa Cruz guitars in there. Yeah. Um I we we had been talking to you a little bit, but I I walked up to you and I had to convince this is before I owned the shop, uh-huh. But I but I knew that I wanted to get that in. So I actually had to convince the previous guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:35

I'm not tough enough for retail. I really admire you.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:38

Well, I I I made a a deal with the previous owner saying, I'm gonna take out a loan for Santa Cruz guitars because he didn't want it, any more lines, nothing like that. Yeah. And I borrowed money from from my father-in-law, and I said, Here's the deal. No, we I said uh I said, We're gonna we're gonna get Santa Cruz in here, and I told the the previous owner, like, uh, and you know what? I will pay for the guitars to have it, and I'll give you a percentage of that to ask of course because I knew I wanted to buy this store. And and I think this is this is the place we should we should have it. And and the inspiration for that was uh I remember my father played guitar, and we used to go to music stores, and there's a there's a music store in Carmel. I forget what the name of it was. Carmel Music. Was it Carmel Music?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

It was actually Bartlett's uh and then Dexter Johnson, had who worked there for a long time, uh, took over and it became Carmel Music.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:36

Yeah. Well, I I remember playing this acoustic guitar and just strumming a G chord on it. And and uh I I built a guitar for this like myself. Well, the the the logo was on the 12th fret, but I but I didn't know what to make of it because I didn't I had not heard of Santa Cruz guitars at the time. This is the early 2000s, and uh Wow, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:56

And I uh Yeah, that would have been Dexter.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:58

And I strummed the guitar, and I'm like, what is this? I mean it's amazing. And and and when I approached you, and I this was a true story, I'm like, there are two times in my life I remember just having this amazing physical reaction to strumming a G chord. One was at Groom's guitar when I strummed a 1942 D28, and the other was was strumming a Santa Cruz, so that's why I wanted to have that in there. So it's they really are fantastic guitars. When you say world class, I I couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:28

Well, thank you. Uh it's it's um, you know, again, credit to the the uh masters of hundreds of years ago that allowed us to have the foundation for what we do, uh, you know, the the partners, the helpers, the mentors uh that got us here, and just the God-given grace of uh getting Tony Rice here at Clapton put on her doorstep, and then people like you that uh in spite of uh all the credibility a brand like Martin had, you you trusted your ears. You heard that and you knew there was something different.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:07

And and there's a great story. Well, there's a reason why Martin became famous, though, right? I mean, when they were on the scene, there is there's nothing like them. That's right. You know? And but like you said, standing on the shoulders of giants, you can you can improve things. I I I still think Martin's a fantastic guitar and and and definitely will have its place in the uh you know in the history of guitar making for so many people, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:32

Um I I don't know uh I don't know be a guitar maker if it hadn't been for the early influence of Martin on me. Um yeah, they did a good thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:46

Yeah. Well, I I wanted to talk about some of the dates coming up because the 50th anniversary is coming out, and I want to I wanted to um when I say coming out, it's happened. It's 2026.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:57

But uh our birthday, our our 50th birthday is in September. Okay. Yeah, coming up September 2026. So September 22nd, 17, I mean 1976, was when we signed our partnership agreement at Santa Cruz Guitar Company, so that's what we commemorate.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:17

Oh, cool. Well, they you're um you have a uh display that's gonna be on the um in the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz. Nice. Which is not only are you building guitars, but clearly you've made a a huge impact on the community, and that's got to feel really good, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:30

It it is. Uh, there was a time in my life that would have seemed supremely ironic. You know, kind of like I mentioned Daryl Anger earlier. Uh Darrell's on the world stage as a uh uh violinist. I remember when he got arrested on Pacific Garden Mall for busking, you know, along with uh several other people again that are world-class acts that uh back then they were like uh uh human vermin, you know, because of that. I'm so sorry. I had this on airplane mode.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:03

Oh, no problem. So so you can be a derelict as long as you have staying power, and then you become a legend?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:11

I'm gonna send a message here. Sure. Uh okay, let me get back on uh airplane mode. It is on airplane mode. Why? I have a really um awkward relationship with iPhone. Yeah. Well, uh so Yeah, I'm sorry for the interruption.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:40

No, no problem. Uh so so the um the dates for the uh Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz will be June 18th through October 4th. Yeah, the greatest of the long run. And then not only are you doing a run of the 50th anniversaries, which are gonna have the greatest hits, the uh the OM pre-war, the 19th 29, uh the H model and the FF, you're gonna be doing a special run of the FTC, which was what Air Clapton was playing. That's right. And there's gonna be there's gonna be three of those made, and they're all gonna have a different Latin script on them. So are they saying anything inspiration? Do they say YOLO or you know what?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:22

I turned that over to uh the makers.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:26

Uh and I do this a lot. Uh uh, even though if I have a concept for a new model, uh, I want them to feel some uh ownership and engagement. So I don't know. I'm gonna see what comes up out of that. Uh the Latin was Casper's idea, because it sounds classy.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:47

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:48

So um uh, you know, profound stuff like uh uh buy low, sell high, don't spit into the wind, lifty, loosey, righty, tidy. I don't know. Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:05

Uh I love the yellow thing. Jack Black has this funny quote where he says, yellow is carpe dum for idiots.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:12

So he could just put carpe dack black called me on the phone uh uh and threw a friend down in Hollywood, uh got a got a D model. Oh, wow. And um uh used it in tenacious D. And uh we um we didn't really stay in close touch. Uh but when when he got the guitar, uh we gave him an artist price, uh, which we'll do in exchange for promotion. Um and uh I said, uh and there's no contract, but if you ever fall out of if it ever falls out of favor with you, give us the option to buy it back or modify it for you. Because we didn't want to sell a guitar at a at an artist's discount and then just have them sell it to somebody else. And some years later, he called up in the middle of some really awkward situation here. I don't know what we had. Uh uh uh uh upset customer, angry landlord, something really weird like that in the office. And he called up and he said, You to asked me to call you, he says, I've been a pinch, I really need the money, and I need to sell the guitar, and I wanted your permission. And I went, You're all right. Go right ahead. And that was the that was the last of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:35

Okay. That's that's cool. I'm I mean, and he's a I've seen him play live and they're hilarious. I love what's watching the Tenacious game.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:42

You know, uh, it's it's funny. Uh he's he's a brilliant guy, um uh and spectacular voice and player. And uh uh uh he evokes the memory of Jerry Reed, who why in the world he had to be a clown, because he was just a crazy gifted guitar player. And of course, he made a living and he made himself famous. Who who am I to say? That's a bad thing, but it it's uh it's funny. Roy uh Roy Clark, yeah, another guy, you know, hee-haw. Nah, I think Keith Richards said he was the best guitar player in the world. Anyway, excellent. You you asked the questions. I'm having too much fun. I know I at the coffee table with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:30

I'm I'm really enjoying this, but I I also want to make sure that we we talk about some of the stuff that we're excited about. And the last thing I have notes on that I need to bring up here, and then I've done my homework. Is the uh and I just got to see it. Apparently we saw it for the first time together, the the H13, and I'm gonna I'm gonna uh do some photographs and put that on the video so you can see how the how beautiful this thing is. So and and we're using we're using all wood that's from around the Santa Cruz area.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:57

Not just around uh the the city limits. We did a Santa Cruz County guitar uh some years ago, uh because we get up in the mountains and we have uh a pretty broad thing, but this is within the city limits, and they're not just oh, these are trees that grow in Santa Cruz, they're really viable tone woods, you know, uh that do that. But it's a it's homage to the city and what the city's allowed us and done for us, uh both uh uh uh business-wise and inspiration. Oh, you know, to make us who we are. Um and it God, what a what a beauty.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:36

It is to say so. It is, it's got um, and like I said, we'll we'll put this up on the video, but it's got like the the the boardwalk like up on the on the head.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:44

Yeah, the peg head is a really stylistic, uh uh almost uh like noir uh vision of the boardwalk. Uh it's more what's not there that speaks the loudest in it. Um uh uh Jimmy Winger did that inland. It's just beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:03

And then the um I think you were telling me the sinker redwood is like uh tell us about that because you said it's over 300 years old or it's well uh no older than that.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:12

So this would predate uh European uh uh uh visitors, interlopers. Um it it it would have fallen from natural causes. It's not like a logging uh fall. From natural causes of the size of the tree, it probably was up to 1,500 years old as a living tree. Um it would have tumbled into and you know, whether it was uh uh forest fire, lightning, whatever, you mean it's pause. Okay. It uh would have tumbled into the San Lorenzo River, which runs about uh a hundred yards from where we sit right now, but at a much higher elevation, and uh that's strewn with these glacial huge granite boulders as we tumble down uh in uh from a higher elevation down here. And we're speculating it would have taken about 300 years to make that trip. Because it's a huge tree, it's gonna uh every huge storm that would happen, it would get lodged and go a little ways, right? But it would have taken about 300 years to make it out to sea, uh, and then come back in and wash up on the beach. And that was based on the um decay degradation at the end grain uh that we could see on it. And uh um it is redwood is uh impervious to bugs uh and decay, it's really, really sturdy. Um and a big log, the uh the exterior can suffer all kinds of insult, but the interior stays intact. So uh not only that, but the resins polymerize. They don't need uh uh oxygen. It would have been in cold water for most of it, which would have been anaerobic and lack of decay. Um and it gets this beautiful color from mineral that comes in through the ingrain and gave it its beautiful stripes. It's also got a really uh a real subtle flame, faint large flame in it. Too much is dangerous because it uh the integrity won't strings would warp and distort it. Uh, but it's it's the coolest, coolest wood, uh redwood I've ever seen. And I'm protective of it. I don't like to use it, but it went into this guitar.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:48

So it's uh uh uh it washed up on the beach, and uh uh our friend Brian Campbell of uh Tree Bone Bonnie Doon Lumber uh uh got it for us.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:00

And and tell us about the uh tell us about the surfer on the heel cap too.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:04

Oh yeah. Um the uh uh right uh uh uh we we go almost directly down to the ocean from here. There's um uh steamer lane, which is a real world-famous surf destination. They have contests there and so forth. And uh the city put up a stature uh statue, uh beautiful statue. It's uh uh uh like this young Adonis and his jams, uh the surfer stood up behind him, and it's uh it's become kind of a uh a city icon. And so it's a little engraving on the heel cap of that surfer, which is really, really great. Really cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:52

And you're gonna give that the gift to the city, huh? Mm-hmm. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:56

Now let me tell you about the size and back. This is sycamore, which is unusual. Uh, but sycamore is beautiful, it grows all over the world. Uh but this particular one is native to our area, and it's um uh it has a pattern on it um that looks like uh uh the background's kind of tan. Uh the pattern is little um tan splotches, and then offset behind it is a little uh kind of grayish black. And it to me it looks just like uh a leaf floating on a shallow pool, and you see the shadow on the bottom of it. It's really striking, really, really pretty. And where this came from is we had uh a real major earthquake in 1989 uh that required most of downtown to be rebuilt. Uh, and where this particular uh tree was found, uh they did an excavation down about 30 feet to um do the foundation parking garage building. So uh at uh uh um the uh there's a level they determined was about 150 years ago. This is like 25 years ago, uh, that had these little disposable clay pipes from Dutch workmen, uh some uh bottles from apothecary, etc., where they can actually date the time that that was. This tree was down towards the bottom of their um dig, and we're thinking um three or five thousand years ago is when the San Lorenzo River that our redwood came from would have run right down that street, Pacific Avenue, our main uh commercial thoroughfare. Um, and it is since moved over quite a bit. But that tree would have fallen in a higher elevation, gone down and gotten stuck there and buried and buried and buried. They built a town over. It's kind of like uh uh uh I was in uh Cologne, Germany, and uh 40 feet down there's this uh uh a Roman roadway. And what is it, skin cells, dust, and uh paper clips that build it up over 2,000 years. But anyway, that was down uh almost 30 feet, and we need to carbonate that, but that sycamore is is it it could be the dawn of time, but we're speculating it's at least three to five thousand years old, and again preserved in an anaerobic environment. So that's the back end size.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:51

Oh, that's cool. That's pretty cool. All right, well, we're gonna um we're gonna uh end the interview very shortly, but I always like to ask two more questions before before you end. And thank you so much for your time. A pleasure. So the the we're gonna give two three lists. The first uh top three lists is what are the what are your three characteristics that have allowed you to have a business and keep one going for 50 years? That's the first question.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:19

Okay, um uh number one faith. Um uh and and I I don't proselytize, but I'll give you anybody some really good advice. Don't try to do this alone. And I'm not talking business, I'm talking about this uh uh dangerous pursuit of life. I mean, uh I'll be 75 in June. The business is gonna be 50 years old, and it's not a miracle, it's a series of miracles uh that are inconceivable. You know, the odds of uh achieving these milestones with it. Um I gave you hints all along the way here and and what I was talking about. My realization that the cost of pride is not worth it um is really the foundation of uh of most sophisticated uh uh cultures of spiritual beliefs and religions. Um the uh uh uh you know you you edit it at will here, but um uh uh people have a lot of uh misconceptions about what we've been taught. Uh uh The Garden of Eden uh talks about a time where we were guiless, uh we all got along, there was plenty, um, and uh we partook of the knowledge of good and evil. That's the ego, that's the self. Um uh without that, everything's peachy. You know, we love we love each other uh uh as much as we care about ourselves, and life is good. But once we start looking at it from a personal perspective in comparison and start competing, it gets funky. Yeah, right? So I'm never gonna achieve the selfless uh uh uh perfection, you know, that would be really desirable. But to but to live in pursuit of that uh makes life beautiful. Um your happiness comes from making other people happy, and uh it's infectious and it makes life good. So the whole pursuit of Santa Cruz Guitar Company is a vehicle for that, uh making the world a better place and allowing people to enjoy life to the fullest. Um the um uh uh the second part, I realize I'm stepping on uh the second part is the support of my uh uh you know uh dear wife of 53 years. Um uh I didn't say tolerance, support, because it's it it there's been some really difficult times. And um, you know, she sacrificed quality of life for the you know for the longer haul, the greater good, and uh uh I'm really, really grateful to her for doing that. And then uh all all the aforementioned mentors and partners that helped me get here. Uh nobody, you know, I said, don't try this alone. Uh you don't get here alone. And uh uh uh I'm first to to admit that uh uh I'm just the last man standing. You know, that's what I represent. Um and what you described as your introduction to Santa Cruz, your support of us through your retail store, that allows us to pay the rent and pay each other and keep going till tomorrow. So here's to another 50 years. Right. Clink.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:02

And uh the very last question will be if you could take three instruments to you into the afterlife. And it could be something as uh like small as a transistor radio to your favorite guitar or your instruments, or the piano that your mother played for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:19

Yeah. Okay, my favorite instrument, it's kind of almost a tie here first and second, is the cello and uh the double reeds like oboe, English horn. These are like these are like the closest uh sonic equivalent to the human voice. They really, really move me. Um and it's funny, I I spent my whole life uh dedicated to the guitar and uh uh the cello uh and uh the oboe uh really really move me. Um uh and then of course th the guitar. So uh um I gotta I gotta respond to the transistor radio, can I?

SPEAKER_04 1:45:14

Sure, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:15

Um transistor radio uh seems like a silly little consumer giga, but that changed it changed the world. Think of your business. Uh my um my music store, which is of course independent, locally owned way back then, uh represented what most retail stores, uh, music stores were around the country. Um they sold uh uh records, band instruments, uh sheet music, uh radios, uh TVs. So as these technologies came out, they had more to do with a music store than they did the clothing store, so that's where they ended up, right? When the transistor radio came out, it it showed up in the drugstore. And it changed everything. Yeah right? Uh it didn't go into the music store, and that whole side of the consumer uh uh appeal went away, and the drugstore, I mean the music store changed forever. And then the internet came. So anyway, transistor radio. Um, and I I had my uh my first um real introduction to uh uh music. I borrowed transistor radio with a uh earpiece under my covers, under my pillow at night, trying to get a station, you know, way far away. It's that's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:50

Oh, that is that is cool. Well, once again, thank you so much for your time, Richard. Um here's to 50 years, and here's to another 50. Keeping the legacy going.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:00

Man, thanks for what you do. I hope everything goes your way.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:04

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:05

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