almost 16 million people picked up the guitar during the
pandemic according to a study by fender and you got
to capitalize on the new guitar gods offenders releasing its
first marketing campaign for its brand. Jackson. I
spoke to fender ceo Andy Mooney about why was the
right time to bring the legendary metal guitars to the
masses and why alternative music is making a comeback.
Take a look. Well, there are two really
kind of strong consumer driven trends in the marketplace right
now. You know, one is kind of retro
trend um, for, for brands and for,
for products. And in some ways, the introduction
of us made Jackson is deja vu all over again
and that's really California made Jackson's was where the brand
started. And the others, we were seeing very
strong demand for premium price custom shop Jackson product,
an artist who originally started with Jackson coming to us
and asking to do signature models. So we saw
a lot of demand potential out there for a whole
grouping of us made Jackson's for the future. So
we've heard for years that the electric guitar is dead
, but why is it not dead in your opinion
? Well, not, not only is was that
headline factually mistaken. Even prior to Covid, the
guitar segment was actually growing at a healthy high single
digit, low double digit rate during Covid absolutely mushroomed
. And you know, now we're starting to see
a little bit normalization of demand, particularly the low
end, but at a significantly higher plateau than when
we entered Covid. So the category is live and
kicking and in very good shape. Now Jackson is
a brand that's mostly known by metal guitarists. And
right now we're seeing a comeback of alternative rock,
punk and emo music which I'm super excited for.
So why do you think this style of music is
becoming popular again? Well, again, even before
Covid, when when it comes to live music,
heavy metal music was the fastest growing segment of live
music. With now the kind of re emergence of
live music we're seeing again pick up in demand as
consumer driven for guitars that really appeal to that type
of player and it's the home of the largest percentage
of virtuoso guitarist. Guitar is using a much wider
way than than it ever has been. But there's
a higher percentage of virtuoso guitarists in metal than in
any other genre. And I know we talked a
lot about how Jackson is perfect for metal, but
how can you help Jackson expand past its metal roots
and kind of appeal to other kinds of musicians who
might want to pick up electric guitar? Well,
the the guitar that's on the wall behind me,
the the Pearl White um soloist, which is the
platform. We just launched the way that's configured which
is called H. S. S. Set up
the two single coil pickups, 11 hum bucker pickup
, you can shred with highly distorted guitar, you
know, to your heart's content, but you can
also get very chime e melodic tones by use of
the tone controls and the five way selector switch.
So it actually functions for a very broad range of
genres. Now you decided to bring Jackson production from
overseas back to the U. S. So why
make these guitars american made? Well, two reasons
, I mean one is the we're still actually growing
kind of overseas business. Um but we are we
also simultaneously. So this tremendous pickup in demand for
very premium price custom made guitars which our only affordable
by a small percentage of the community. So we
saw a kind of market opportunity for very high quality
us made production that we're in a price zone somewhere
between our offshore production models and our custom shop models
. So we know based on the results from the
early launch of the product that there's going to be
really strong demand for these. It's in the prices
on that. We've never really operated in four years
now. During the pandemic, you mentioned this,
we saw a huge increase in the number of people
who learned how to play guitar. So how is
Jackson, parent company fender keeping those players playing.
Okay, well, one of one way we're doing
it is to continue to invest in our online learning
product fender, play on that that that program,
that product, you can learn any number of genres
. You know, whether it's country music, blues
or heavy metal. We really think providing beginners with
the right product and the right motivation through education and
encouragement. We've, we really have been focused on
really since about 2016 reducing the abandonment rate of first
time players, which is actually pretty high for guitar
players as high as 90% abandonment rate in the first
year historically. So last question, any tips for
anyone who wants to pick up a guitar? Well
, I think you should begin with picking up the
right guitar if you're a very young first time player
, my encouragement would actually be to pick up an
island strong acoustic guitar to really familiarize uh, with
yourself with the instrument and then graduate to short scale
of electric guitar and then ultimately to, to steal
strong acoustic guitar. That's the route I took when
I was a very young player. That's the route
that a lot of very significant guitarist like Edge,
that's the path that he took. Try to eliminate
the pain early on. And then, uh,
then really, you, you kind of connect with
the instrument over time and trying to get good,
good tuition either online or in person