Fender has always been by far my #1 company and there is no other forum like ours. I also have a thing for EBMM guitars and have spent sometime on there forum. Now Sterling Ball is a regular poster on the forum and it is amazing how many idea's he takes into consideration from his posters.

The thing that is so cool though is that so many of the guys who have signature guitars with them like Steve Lukather, Steve Morse, Albert Lee and John Petrucci just drop in and post every once in a while like you or I would and sincerely seem happy to drop a post or clip of what they have been up to. Or they throw up a piece they have been working on for the guys on the forum.

Brad how cool would it be if we had Clapton, Beck,Mayer,Johnson or any of the 20 or so great players we have do the same. I believe you have the ears of the people who can make this happen and just think how cool that would be. To be honest I would believe Mayer would be the first guy to agree to drop in.I would believe that if each artist got a memo about it at least 5 or so would probably be happy to talk with us. If you dont ask you wont know.

So what do you think of this Brad and how does everyone else feel about it. After all we are the Fender Nation.

I think it's a fine idea Straycat, wether these artist's would agree is debateable I guess. Still... like you say, you don't get if you don't ask. I'll be watching this one, with great interest.

I've heard rumors that some drop by every once in a while just to see what's up and that some might even post under assumed names. But yes, that would be cool!!

I dont think clapton would ever do anything near that.

The others might though.

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"Oh, it's a windy and sunny day
And I can hear the faint sound of distant waves
The past weeks have been going by so fast
It's all the same, the bright sky and shining sun
I have a feeling it's gonna be a fun day"

Great idea; don't know if it would happen though. Over on the Vintage Amps board is one of the original guys who worked with Jim Marshall from the beginning.

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Current Gear: Ron Kirn Barnbuster Tele,
Marshall: 1971 SuperLead 100>1997 1960-TV, bunch of pedals
and a 1987 Porsche 911 Carrera coupe named Veronica

cool idea straycat, but if I had to trade any of you Bros for one of those guys I'd have to say no thanks.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Ya, I doubt Clapton would ever take time to post on a forum. But I do know other celbs do take time to post things. On my website I had an old guest book (which I had to blow because it was no longer supported by newer javascripts) that had several well known artists sign it.

One funny story for me was the time I sold a guitar on eBay and the person who bought it (whose name was on the paypal payment) was Steve Cropper. Honest, I did not have a clue. Just didn't think. Then I sent an email thanking him for his fast payment and then asked "Are you a home picker or do you play in a band?" .....I am sure he got a laugh out of that! He emailed me his bio and then I if went GULP! I emailed him back and we started communicating. He told me about his influence on Fender regarding the MIJ reissues when the setting up of the expansive Fugi Gen Gakki company took place.

i found out he was into collectable knives, so I sent him an extra Gurkha Kukri knife that i had picked up in Nepal. He was happy to get it. Very down to earth person. Humbling to me!

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

That's awesome!

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
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Fender being a private company seems to draw more from outside polls rather than it's forum. I say that because I am also on the Hyundai forum and have talked to some very high level people (John Kracik and others) like if they were regular administrators and they ask specific questions and converse directly with us to get down to the core issues they are researching. Not putting any company down but I guess that is why they are on Forbes as the most aggressive company.


Yes, it would be nice if artists would join us but I don't think Fender has any control over that and we shouldn't blame Fender for that. We are lucky to have the custom shop Mike Eldrid available to us and it would be nice to have more R&D/Tech join in but I'm sure they are also very busy.

As with the Hyundai forum administrators, Brad can only do so much and he has always gone above and beyone the call of duty for us. I've thrown some ideas at Hyundai including a song (Mike from Santa Fe/Veracruz product dev dared me ) and all the admin can do is present it at the panel meeting which usually throws it out.

So Yngwie if you are listening please join us.

Hi straycat: back in the earlier days of the Forum there was a widely held belief that John Mayer did indeed stalk these boards under a pen-name. The notion was that he was gathering input for his (then) forthcoming signature Strat - though I have no idea if any of this is true.

However, if he's been around recently he will have seen some very unflattering things said about him here, which wouldn't exactly encourage a guy to stick around.

I've also heard it said that Jack Black is a bit of a forum devotee. With his tastes I'm not sure this would be the one for him, but...? And there was a theory going round that Jack Black is gearmandude on YouTube. Seemed a convincing theory to me, but I never heard whether it was confirmed or not.

Cheers - C

There are several guitar celeb's that have facebook profiles. Some maintain their pages themselves (like Joe Bonamassa) although most have PA's that do their posting for them (Gilmour is a good example). I'm certain there are at the very least a few members of the Fender family of musicians would take the time to post (Matt Rach probably would) if approached to do so.

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"I started out with nothing, and still have most of it"

cool idea straycat, I think they would be interested in the vast knowledge of the regulars, on this forum. I think its cool how everyone takes the time to answer simple set-up questions to technical ones.

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2012 American Vintage Telecaster 1958
09 Fender american deluxe strat.
97 Gibson les paul special P90's double-cut
65 Princeton reverb re-issue
2010 Guild Gad-F40e

Joe Bonamassa actually answers and post on quite a few threads on his forum as well as face book……Personally I don’t know how artist’s do or could find the time to keep up with a forum in addition to touring recording or and what ever else they got keeping them busy..hats off to the ones that do..

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(80’s Hair Metal) = A snapshot in time before Grunge ruined Rock & Roll forever!!!!

The way I figure it, as long as their careers are solidly riding high, especially among those who regularly receive their free signature guitars by contractual obligation, unless they are somehow compensated big time for it, they have no practical use for any of us. And even if they did for whatever their motivation(s) may be, I'm sure they'd want to be heralded in like there's no tomorrow.

Cynical? No, just brutally frank.

As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV.

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You dig?

I think this is a fantastic idea and it's something that I too have been hoping for for these forums! There are tons of killer artists that we work with on a daily basis, many of whom are already forum-, blog-, and Internet-savvy in their own right and I think it'd be fun to start having a few of them hop by here every now and then.

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Director at Fender. Guitarist & guitar collector. All views/opinions expressed here are my own and not Fender’s.

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