Is Fender destroying the Charvel brand?

[jspeed]

I own 5 Pro Mod Charvels. Various origins, USA, MIJ, MIM, and they are all great playing instruments. I play them all regularly, and if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the MIM Orange Sparkle that I acquired last year. I had my doubts about it, but it sounds a little fatter and has solid tone. I like them all though.

Yeah, those Orange Sparkle's are badd azz!

[jspeed]

Wayne & Michael have created a niche for themselves making copies of the guitars that Grover made years after Wayne had sold the company.

Grover, on the other hand, is now making modern superstrats, paying homage to the classics but not merely mimicking them.

No doubt, Grover, Wayne & Michael are all still putting out awesome guitars

[Nightbat]

No doubt, Grover, Wayne & Michael are all still putting out awesome guitars

Well,.. at least Grover is

[Iceberg794]

Anyone know why Wayne went downhill after the buyout?

[VitaminG]

Anyone know why Wayne went downhill after the buyout?

downhill from where?

He owned a parts company, sold it, had a few stabs at designing guitars for other manufacturers, a couple of false starts at his own production companies before he and Michael finally started making replicas of Charvels made famous under Grover's guiding hand

[jspeed]

The way I understand Charvel guitars history, it was Wayne that actually gave Grover a job at his place, then later he sold it to him. http://www.wayneguitars.com/history.html

What's up with all the Wayne Charvel hate over here fellas? :dunno:

[pianoguyy]

The way I understand Charvel guitars history, it was Wayne that actually gave Grover a job at his place, then later he sold it to him. http://www.wayneguitars.com/history.html

What's up with all the Wayne Charvel hate over here fellas? :dunno:

That story comes from Wayne. It is definitely told from a perspective.
It wouldn't be good business to post the actual story on a business website trying to sell products.

[Nuithari]

As I understand from combining loads of bits and pieces of information, Wayne Charvel probably never made 1 guitar from scratch before he sold it to Grover... He bought bodies and necks and piece those together. He had a mod shop, made some parts for other manufacturers, dipped pickups and painted bodies. That's about it.
Only when Grover took over, did Charvel (the brand) start producing their own guitars.

Here are some nice walls of text with some nice info:
Interview with Wayne (and Grover's reaction to it): http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/inter...e_charvel.html
Interview with Grover Jackson: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/inter...r_jackson.html

Both versions probably have some truth, but piecing everything together, I tend to lean more towards Grover's version.

[Iceberg794]

I personally don't hate on Wayne. In fact I love his super strat creations.

In fact I just found out about Wayne guitars.com

I didn't realize Wayne is still running a shop. I was misinformed about his "fall". A lot of websites talk about his failed stints and about his guitars being nothing specials, but these guitars I'm looking at Wayne charvel.com look really nice.

[Grandturk]

Nobody hates Wayne. Well not personally I'm sure. I think it's just tiring to hear his BS repeated over and over. Sure he might be putting some decent guitars together these days, but he doesn't belong in the same conversation as Leo Fender, Ted McCarty and Grover Jackson.

[jspeed]

There seems to be a level of animosity or disrespect directed towards Wayne.

Sure there’s a lot of he said/she said between Wayne & Grover, but both stories seem to agree on one simple fact….. Grover worked at Anvil case company and Wayne gave him his job at Charvel guitars.

So, if Wayne Charvel didn’t give Grover a job at Charvel, he might have just stayed in the ATA case industry and would have never built any of the shred guitars we love today.

Honestly........ if anyone wants to show animosity or disrespect to anyone, it should be directed towards the companies who actually screwed both of them and still use their names to sell products.


I'm personally cool with everyone involved with Jackson & Charvel guitars (past & present) and very happy to continue buying them.

[Grandturk]

Who got screwed? Near as I can tell they were both financially compensated when they sold their companies at the time that they sold their companies.

[jspeed]

Who got screwed? Near as I can tell they were both financially compensated when they sold their companies at the time that they sold their companies.

Near as you can tell…..

No disrespect bro, but Wayne, Grover and even Kramer were all getting sued by Fender or Gibson before you even learned how to tune a guitar. All three of those guys were crushing Fender & Gibson sales during the days of shred and wanted to shut them all down to gain back “their” market share.

Like I said, no disrespect meant at all, just stating facts that some of us old rockers actually remember from back in the day, not just read about. Let’s leave it at that, the new MIM Charvels are nice guitars and worth the money, peace dude.

[jspeed]

I personally don't hate on Wayne. In fact I love his super strat creations.

In fact I just found out about Wayne guitars.com

I didn't realize Wayne is still running a shop. I was misinformed about his "fall". A lot of websites talk about his failed stints and about his guitars being nothing specials, but these guitars I'm looking at Wayne charvel.com look really nice.

Wayne & Michael are building really nice stuff, their turn around time is a lot faster than some of those others out there too.

[xenophobe]

The only valid thing that Wayne Charvel has to complain about is that he sold his company name, for probably a lot less than he should have.

It's not Grover's fault that he purchased it and Wayne wouldn't have sold it if he didn't get a reasonable offer at the time.

Without Grover taking over, the brand name Charvel and Jackson probably wouldn't have any meaning to us today.