MGS - We are here with Warrior guitar cofounder and current Bennett Music labs owner Bruce Bennett. Thank you Bruce for sitting down to chat with us.
BB - Glad to be here Tony! Hopefully I can say something worth hearing, lol
MGS - What got you started into tinkering with musicical instruments?
BB - Well, It's a pretty simple story, My Dad worked for Sears & Roebuck co. and when I asked him for a guitar at age 7, he brought home one of those "Stella type" small body acoustics that played like a cheese-grater, ( you know the ones) that thing scared my mother half to death looking at my bleeding fingers. but I learned to play it.
several years later We bought a blue label Japanese made Epiphone bolt on neck 335 copy, but that was one of the ones that have the serious body/neck block problems, so it played like a truck after about 6 months. it had action about a full inch off the neck at the 12th fret! I sent it to 3-4 different repair shops around locally and nobody could do much with it, so I started working on it myself. Never could get it it play much better though. it had a serious case of dry rot inside the neck block, but it taught me a great deal of the geometry of the guitar.
I then asked my Dad if I could get a Les Paul, so we headed down to the local music store where the saleman showed us a new Les Paul custom for 800.00. (1977) My Dad looked at me and said "Son, if you want one of those, you had better learn how to build it, because I'm not paying 800.00 for no hunk of wood"
2 years later I finished my first guitar, I was 16 years old. It was a BC Rich Ironbird copy. with a strat style tremolo and 2 humbuckers. The neck was atrociously huge, but playable. The body was solid mahogany and looked fairly good. I had figured out how to do all this without any help from anyone. I did it all in the old barn behind the house, using hand planes and chisels.
Folks started telling me that I had a talent for it, so I kept on learning about woodworking and next thing I know I'm repairing guitars for other folks.
In 1983 I started an apprenticeship with a local guy named Terry Atkins ( he now is production manger for Tacoma guitars)
Then later I worked for most of the local shops in my home town of Chattanooga, then in 1993, went on to work for the Steinberger/Tobias Division of Gibson guitars in Nashville. In 1995 I came home to found Warrior instruments and in 1998 started Bennett Music Labs.
MGS - Can you give us a history of your guitar, amp, and effect pedal building? How did it all get started?
BB - I have always been a "tinkerer"... I will take apart anything and look it over, and once I got bit by the guitar bug... well, amps and effects just became fair game as well. It's hard for folks to believe, but I started VERY young with my tinkering. I tore apart my first engine at age 7 (1967 chevy 235 6 cylinder)
I was a very tenacious kid. I used to drive my folks crazy with my constant questions and theorizing, but when something needed fixing, everyone in the family called for me.
And when combined with a lack of hard cash.... building the things I wanted, just "seemed cheaper" lol ,boy was I wrong!
My first amp was a Bogen challenger PA system, it sounded like crap, but it was all tube and so I learned from it... I built Fender Champ copies for fun and a few dollars and repaired amps for friends... family members sometimes called me "Jim-Bob Walton"
Sounds and textures became an art form to me. I studied at a local studio about sound engineering and even produced a couple of records for local bands which lead to exploring the burning question.. HOW did these guys get these sounds?
I took apart everything in sight and studied it relentlessly,guitars, amps, effects. speaker cabs.
While I was working on the Warrior project I saw that the Boutique effects pedal market was just beginning and I thought that here was another market that Warrior should be in. So I started working on my Brown Sound project. I had a fabulous player available to me ( Michael Shawn) to help me test stuff out, and with his and my own experience, as well as having a full recording studio available to use ( Hope Studios)...we came up with the Brown Sound.
MGS - Who was your biggest influence in the business starting out?
BB- That honor belongs to Joe Chambers of Chattanooga Tn.
We would brainstorm for hours sometimes about new ideas and inventions for musical gear. He is a jazz guitarist and knows his stuff, He opened my thinking up from not just rock or blues, but to all forms of guitar based music. I got exposed to hundreds of the old jazz boxes and really nice vintage guitars at his shop and I was working as a repairman for him, so I received hands-on experience with some of the rarest vintage guitars you could ever ask for. It was there that the idea for the Warrior G-factor bridge was developed. Along with so many other ideas/inventions that have ALL come to be common place in the market now. If I had only thought to patent some of those ideas THEN! Oh well lol
MGS - How did Warrior guitars get started?
BB- That is a strange story; I'll try to make this simple. lol
I had worked for JD Lewis back in 1985-87 at a local store called the Sound Post.
Then in 1988 I started my own shop called Mercury guitars. During that time a fellow named Chuck , came in and asked if i could build him this fretless bass. He wanted it to have a very unique body shape that he himself had drawn. And he wanted it to have this unique neck profile that he had seen on a new fangled bass out in California called the Tobias! Well, I built him the bass, but IT just plain sucked! and it became a point of contention between us for quite a while . Then one night he comes to my house and he's bawling his eyes out and says to me that he has been praying and that GOD told him to GIVE me back that bass. ( wow! very strange)
So after a few years go by, I get this call from a guy named Frank Johns. He says he works for a company called Tobias Basses and that they need luthiers to come up and work for them because Gibson had bought the company and moved it to Nashville and none of the original workers had come with the company. He had gotten my name from some local folks as a recommended repairman.
So, in 1993 I went to work for the Tobias Division of Gibson, and while I was there. the president of Gibson comes down and says " we are offering a special bonus to anyone that comes up with a new design, and if we build it the company will pay $1000 cash bonus and give you the first instrument off the line.
Now I'm thinking here is a chance to get a grand AND maybe get Chuck the bass he always wanted. So i got busy, pulled out that old bass and started designing... it took me about 3 months to get everything just right. so I send it to Henry and he says. "We can't build it, it's too complicated" I figured he meant that it was too costly and just threw the plans in the closet at home
2 weeks later some "suits" from Gibson come down and put a contract in front of me and tell me I need to sign this no-compete clause or I don't have a job... to make along story a little shorter, I don't sign,, and I end up coming back home to chatt. where JD says "let me see those plans" he then decides he wants to push foward with the idea and together, We started Warrior along with Micheal Shawn and My Brother-in-law Will Fix. and by using the recording studios equipment. we were able to develop an instrument that had greater range than any bass before, and to develop all new ideas that have become leading edge technology in the instrument field today, such as the Splayed truss rod, the G-factor bridge stringing system... the use of bloodwood as fingerboards and purple heart centers for frequency transmission throughout the entire instrument.
We also helped bring about the advent of the Basslines pickups by working with Kevin Beller at Seymour Duncan by providing frequency specs for our intsruments. warrior was the VERY FIRST to us the new Basslines pickups in production. in fact the very first Basslines said Seymour Duncan on them and we got the only 5 sets ever made that way.
MGS - How many of the Warrior guitars were built by you Bruce? Do you remember serial numbers?
BB - from 0001 to 0151
The last one was the first of the Archangel series. they were built by myself, Will Fix, Nick Holloway and Jesse Blue. this was the first production Warrior crew. Nick and Jesse came on board after ser# 0071
MGS - Whats the craziest thing youve ever built?
BB - 10 string pedal steel that was to be used for a stage act where it was to be "blown up" repeatedly.
although some folks tell me that my amps are pretty strange looking .lol
MGS - Tell us about Bennett Music Labs. What all is available?
BB- Well, It's my own custom proto-typing shop, so the sky, (or your wallet) is the limit.
at current, I will build custom guitars, amps, pedal effects and speaker cabs.
but I have also built "special furniture" for folks that ask" lol
MGS - What was the inspiration for the Insane Gain? Seems rather unique.
BB - There used to be a store near me called the Sound Barrier that handled vintage effects and the owner was one of those very special people that had the "right" connections
He had Stars coming in by appointment only, to view and buy effects for their personal use. It was here that I met Billy Gibbons and watched him take 3 EH LPB1s and daisy chain them together into a vintage Marshall plexi stack and the tone that came out was... well, it was inspirational to say the least.
How many different amplifiers have you built in the past?
BB - I worked for a little while with Robert Hudson of Blues Pearl infamy and had him design a 25 watt 6V6 based power amp around a Princteon reverb style pre-amp for a super nice small gigging amp that was my first model called the Art Deco amp
Then I started building the Champion 600 clones with the 6SJ7 pre-amp tube,
there are a few Marshall JTM 45 clones out there and a couple of Deluxe tweed clones as well as some 5F11 Tweed clones. these are done upon request
Currently I'm working on a new idea for a series of small amps based on the 5F1 circuit, but with a 10" speaker in a unique art deco cabinet design that will be limited to a run of 12 units per design only. Each one will come with a certificate of Authenticity and a brass plaque with the amps "name and series # designation" engraved on it.
All of these amps will be limited to only 12 in a series, and there will be ( hopefully) a run of 12 series of amps, each with it's own distinct cabinet style and coloring
MGS - Anything cooking right now? What can we look for from BML in the future?
BB - I have 2 new pedals in the works due out by spring
a Marshall plexi style pre-amp pedal with super versatile tone controls and a tremolo pedal based on the Brown Face Fender Concert tremolo. the highs and lows are split first and then each frequency is put through a separate oscilllator and timed 180 degrees off.
Also A new, all tube, Stack style high gain amp that will, if nothing else, freak folks out with it's completely unconventional styling.
lets just say this one will be a well "rounded" amp lol
MGS - Any Parting words? Its open mic time. Say anything you like. Thank anyone you like. Burn anyone you like. Plug anything you like. Its your open mic.....
BB - It's been a interesting journey so far. I don't know where it will take me but I'm in a big hurry to get there and see it.lol
Take a look at my website www.bennettmusiclabs.com for information about all my endeavors and feel free to email me about anything. If I can help I will, if I can't.. I'll tell you who can.
Thank you to Tony for his efforts to make some of the lessor known builders more accessable to the general pubic. Keep up the excellent work!
And to all the musicians out there, Keep an open mind, for that's where creativity lives. look for the right WAY to use something, not for the right something to use. this will challenge you to become more creative.
MGS - Bruce thanks alot for speaking with us. Its always a pleasure and an honor talking with you.
BB - Always a pleasure to hear from you Tony and thank you for the opportunity.
