Judging
by the melee of favorable product reviews, Reverend
guitars go beyond colors and chrome to inspire comments
like "...has the feel and finesse of a $2,000 guitar...instant
blues machine...superior resonance and sustain...warm
and midrangy with the perfect amount of upper-end shimmer
and jangly sparkle..."
Whence
cometh these righteous instruments that spawn such praise?
Would you believe Eastpointe, Michigan?
Around
the back of a small commercial building on Gratiot Avenue
you'll find a white garage door punctuated with a 4"
X 8" retro-look sticker that reads "Reverend Musical
Instruments". Knock on that door and you'll meet Joe
Naylor, the man behind Reverend guitars.
You
may have heard the name Naylor before, attached to a
line of acclaimed speakers and hand-built amplifiers.
In 1996 Joe sold his interest in Naylor Engineering,
the speaker and amplifier company, to found Reverend
Musical Instruments. These days behind that door you'll
find Joe, his wife Kristen, right-hand man Kraig Sagan,
and three other employees.
Reverend
Musical Instruments is a two-room operation that each
month produces about 65 guitars and basses bearing names
like Slingshot, Avenger, Spy, and Rumblefish. The larger
of the two rooms houses raw materials, tools, jigs,
and more. In this room the guitars take shape as a white
mahogany center block, a steel bar, a molded rim, and
a brightly colored phenolic laminate top and back are
joined together. The smaller room houses the office,
along with the electronics and the final assembly/setup
operations.
Vintage Guitar: Describe your journey from guitar player
to guitar designer/manufacturer.
Joe Naylor: I was into guitar players before I played
guitar. Pete Townsend was my idol, along with Jimi Hendrix,
Jeff Beck - the old-school guys. I have three brothers
who play guitar, so there was always a guitar around
the house. My older brother would lock us in his room
and make us listen to him playing along with Hendrix
and Cream records. lf we tried to get up, he would push
us back onto the couch.
I started playing in 1980, and I knew almost immediately
that I wanted to work on guitars. I began reading everything
possible, bothering repair men, things like that. I
was guitar bloodthirsty.
I learned a lot of repair on my own. I got an old Guild
from my brother. I had it with me at Western [Michigan
University, Kalamazoo, Michigan], and I ripped it apart
and rebuilt it. Then I decided to refret it, so I yanked
all the frets out and brought the guitar to a repairman
in Kalamazoo named Pete Moreno. He's one of the best
in the world. Since I couldn't afford to pay him to
do the refret, he gave me some fret wire and carved
me a little neck-holding block, and he pounded a couple
of frets in to show me how to do it. That was my first
foray into repair. Then I started repairing guitars
for other students.
After I graduated, I decided I wanted to repair and
maybe build guitars for a living, and that it was time
to get serious. So I went to Roberto-Venn School of
Luthiery, in Phoenix. I remember getting off the plane
and driving to the school - which looked like nothing
more than a metal shack sitting on a big lot in the
middle of the desert - my first thought was, "This is
nuts. What a waste!"
Then the people took me inside and showed me two or
three guitars that the instructors, John Reuther and
James Weisner, had built. They were incredible, so I
figured I'd better stick around. The course was three
months long, but I stayed an extra two months and learned
semi-hollow construction from James.
VG:
Have semi-hollows always been a focus?
JN:
Yes. Early on I was attracted to them because I liked
a lot of the players: Alvin Lee, Pete Townsend, Chuck
Berry, Billy Zoom, Malcolm Young. One of the first guitars
I owned was a semi- hollow Silvertone, an amp-in-case
model with a single lipstick in the neck position. It
sounded incredible. When I realized that such a great-sounding
guitar was made with masonite, of all things, I started
experimenting with alternative materials - acrylic,
aluminum, foam, different types of laminates, phenolics,
plastics. I've probably built a guitar out of every
conceivable material.
VG: Did you use wood for the frame on your first guitars?
JN: Yes, the early ones were usually wood frames with
wood center blocks, similar to the Silvertone. I did
one that had a foam center block - that was interesting
- and an aluminum top and back. I probably built something
like 30 or 40 bodies on the way to the current guitar.
I would build a body and, if I didn't like it, I'd run
it through the band saw and throw it out. There aren't
too many of those first guitars around.
VG: So when they open the Reverend Guitar Museum 30
years from now, they're not going to have a collection
of prototypes, just production models.
JN: Actually I sold some guitars under the J.F. Naylor
name. I probably built and sold 10 or so.
VG: Were those unusual designs?
JN: They were mostly masonite tops and backs, though
on some of the later ones I started to use the phenolic.
One of those masonite guitars is pictured in the 1987
Guitar World Buyers Guide.
VG: What came next?
JN:
In 1992, my wife and I moved to Detroit and I opened
a store specializing in sales and repair of used guitars
and amplifiers. That was a laboratory for me, where
I learned a lot about vintage guitars and what makes
them tick. I would inspect and play every single piece
of equipment that came in - whether it was the cheapest
Hondo or a nice vintage piece.
We
started Reverend in 1996. That's when I came up with
the injection molding process for the body rim and finalized
the structural design of the body, which is patent-pending.
We call it the high-resonance body.
VG: You said you were always attracted to the semi-hollow
sound. What in particular about that sound attracted
you?
JN: Initially, I was very attracted to the feedback
aspect. I love feedback - Hendrix, Santana, and of course
the Nuge in the early days.
VG: One might get the impression you are aiming for
something beyond the semi-hollow sound of the Silvertone
and the 335-type guitars.
JN: I'm trying to make a semi-hollow guitar that also
appeals to a solidbody player. A Reverend has more attack
and sustain than a Silvertone or a 335 because of the
metal block. And the feedback is more controllable -
all without sacrificing the resonance of a semi hollow
design.
VG: What sound are you aiming for with these guitars?
With the pickup configurations, each model is going
to sound different, but is there some over all sound
you're after?
JN: There is an overall sound you hear no matter what
pickup you put in a Reverend guitar. I'm going for a
resonant sound that's very lively, very responsive to
how you pick, a sound rich in harmonic content, with
a wide frequency range - lots of high-end, lots of low-end
- the sound you hear not only in a good semi-hollow,
but also in a good, light solidbody. It's an overall
liveliness I'm looking for, and the Reverend body -
compared to solidbodies, where some are good and some
are duds - is a design that guarantees every guitar
will be resonant. I was going for consistency.
VG:
Body resonance doesn't depend on this big chunk of wood,
which might be alive with tone, or might be dead.
JN:
Right. I tell people that a lot of my body is air, and
air is fairly consistent worldwide.
VG:
How did you come up with the body shape? Was it an epiphany
or a long struggle?
JN:
It was a combination of influences: Fender, Rickenbacker,
Art Deco. I combined features from some of my favorite
guitars of the '50s and '60s - Jaguars, Jazzmasters,
Supros. Nationals - and put it all together into one.
I was also influenced by what Paul Chandler started
doing 10 years ago, combining vintage aesthetics with
good, workable components.
VG:
And then you have the headstock, which is not Stratocaster
and not Telecaster; it's unique.
JN:
I wanted it to have an identity, but I also wanted it
to be somewhat familiar. Guitar players are fairly conservative
and if something is too far out, they won't be attracted
to it. I wanted it to be familiar, but I didn't want
it to be an overt copy of something.
VG:
What makes a Reverend guitar a player's dream?
JN:
It has a vintage vibe and feel and a somewhat vintage
tone, but not a vintage price tag. It also has modern
reliability and playability. I guess those factors would
make it a dream guitar for a lot of people. In fact,
most of the people who buy my guitars either own or
have owned vintage guitars.
VG:
And for many, there's something about the way that neck
fits into the hand...
JN:
That's the vintage influence. The neck is patterned
after an early-'60s Strat, but with a flatter radius
and bigger frets, which is a common mod to older Strats.
I guess that's my crowd: a vintage crowd, a lot of blues
and blues-rock players. Although a lot of younger players
are picking up on it now.
VG:
Did you ever experiment with a string-through bridge?
JN:
By the time this goes to print Reverend guitars will
have a string-through bridge. Our main motivation is
to continually improve the product. We want to give
our customers the best possible product, and if we can
improve something, we're going to do it. That's our
philosophy. I believe in continually evolving.
VG:
How did you decide on the name?
JN:
I was actively searching for a name, an appropriate
name for a retro-type product. I was in a bookstore
and I saw Blues Review magazine. I grabbed it, thinking,
"There has to be a name in here." So I started thumbing
through it and the word "Reverend" came up two or three
times. There was something on Rev. Gary Davis. As soon
as I saw it, I knew that was it - Reverend!
VG:
It's an effective marketing ploy with a few people.
All the electric guitar-playing clergy I know play Reverend
guitars.
JN:
Funny you should mention that. I'm building a roster
of contemporary Christian rock bands. The bass player
in Jars of Clay is touring with a Reverend. I get a
lot of calls from contemporary Christian bands, and
clergy. There's a minister in South Bend, Indiana, playing
one.
VG:
Is it the name that attracts these people?
JN:
I'm sure they like the guitar in the first place. But
the name is the icing on the cake. Maybe it just says
something to them.
VG:
That would really depend on the style of minister -
the hellfire and brim stone types might really go for
the Avenger. Which brings up another question - where
do the model names come from?
JN:
Kraig and I make them up. Initially, we were going to
go with all religious names like the Minister, the Bishop,
the Friar, the Hellfire. But I didn't want to get locked
into that. I thought, "What happens when we run out
of names?" So we decided just to pick names we like.
VG:
Who would you like to see playing a Reverend guitar?
JN:
I think Jimmy Page and Ronnie Earl would like my guitars.
Billy Gibbons, too. It's got his name on it - the Reverend
Billy Gibbons.
VG:
How about the Rev. Horton Heat?
JN:
That would be cool. I've heard he really smokes. We
do have an active endorsement program. We recently added
Rick Vito. He's using a Spy on tour with Bonnie Raitt.
VG:
What's next?
JN:
The Rumblefish bass is taking off really well, so we're
working on a five string. I'm also working on a line
of Reverend pickups that will probably be out this year.
l'm considering doing speakers again, and maybe a small
amplifier, all under the Reverend name. And maybe some
larger-bodied, single-cutaway guitars and some higher-end
custom models.
VG:
With birdseye phenolic?
JN:
Actually. I was thinking about that...
Robert
A. Arbogast is a minister in the Christian Reformed
Church and has served congregations in Ontario and Michigan.
He has been playing guitar for 24 years.
