Is Fender destroying the Charvel brand?

[jspeed]

I don't think any of them should complain about each other, since they both kinda did help each other.
My point was that if it wasn't for Wayne giving Grover a job first, Grover might have just kept working at Anvil cases; some people seem to forget that. I have great respect for both of them, because without them we might all be playing nothing but single coil Strats today. .... not that there's anything wrong with that....lol

[shreddermon]

Yes, and if Wayne hadn't farted near that butterfly, the rotten-taco smell of which prompted it to migrate home across the pacific, Grover might've never moved Charvel production to Japan where his favorite fart-sensitive butterflies spent their mating months.

[jspeed]

Yes, and if Wayne hadn't farted near that butterfly, the rotten-taco smell of which prompted it to migrate home across the pacific, Grover might've never moved Charvel production to Japan where his favorite fart-sensitive butterflies spent their mating months.

Yeah...... bottom line Wayne gave Grover a job and that's a good thing, cause its hard to tune an ATA case.

[Nightbat]

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.

I don't see EVH thanking Charvel for selling him the parts to make his frankenstrat as if he owed Wayne his career
Who should be grateful of who? if Grover didn't turn Charvel around, Wayne would have faded into obscurity
There is not one iconic guitar that came from Wayne's hands

[pianoguyy]

Had Wayne not hired Grover...
But if Grover was only as good as Wayne, no one would have cared.

Grover was Grover and he made it what it was.

[jspeed]

Maybe some of you don’t want to realize that I’m not taking anything away from all the awesome stuff Grover did & still builds, but what I can understand why there’s so much hate for the guy that gave him his job building guitars.

It’s like some people here just want to re-write history or choose to have selective memory loss or just want to respect one guy & disrespect the other. WTF, we’re not talking about global warming and yet the this sounds like the same type of conversation?

Whatever….. The Mexican Charvel Promods don’t cheapen the brand at all, only their haters can do that.

By the way, if Wayne’s name was so disrespected by so many genius people, why the F*^k didn’t Grover change it? Was he that stupid too? Lol

Have fun fellas, I'm done here!

[xenophobe]

You are trying way too hard. Obvious troll is obvious.

[VitaminG]

Yeah...... bottom line Wayne gave Grover a job and that's a good thing, cause its hard to tune an ATA case.

So we should be thanking the guys at ATA cases. If they hadn't given him a job, he might not have stayed in the music industry to get a job with Wayne and might have been making coffee tables instead

[VitaminG]

It’s like some people here just want to re-write history or choose to have selective memory loss or just want to respect one guy & disrespect the other. WTF, we’re not talking about global warming and yet the this sounds like the same type of conversation?

No hate or disrespect for Wayne here. He did what he did. Read back over my couple of posts in this thread and see if I said anything bad about the man.

But you are correct about people wanting to re-write history. A lot of folks talk about the halcyon days at Charvel guitars, back when Wayne was building them right. How you've never played a REAL Charvel unless you've played one of those early 80s guitars actually built by Wayne. And how he was affected by the buyout.

A lot of people think that Wayne was at the helm when Charvel actually started building guitars but he was gone in '78, when the company was still selling parts. All of the classic Charvels that all of the top rock & metal dudes were playing on tv were all produced on Grover's watch. Wayne now makes copies of those same guitars. He's not alone, plenty of manufacturers are making throwback super strats copying or inspired by Lynchs Sub, Ojeda's Bullseye, etc. Wayne just plays up his name as some kind of badge of authenticity. Get a Wayne, it's more Charvel than the current Charvels, despite Wayne having no involvement with the originals

[xenophobe]

A lot of people think that Wayne was at the helm when Charvel actually started building guitars but he was gone in '78, when the company was still selling parts. All of the classic Charvels that all of the top rock & metal dudes were playing on tv were all produced on Grover's watch. Wayne now makes copies of those same guitars. He's not alone, plenty of manufacturers are making throwback super strats copying or inspired by Lynchs Sub, Ojeda's Bullseye, etc. Wayne just plays up his name as some kind of badge of authenticity. Get a Wayne, it's more Charvel than the current Charvels, despite Wayne having no involvement with the originals

You know, on at least a few deep levels it must injure his soul to reminisce about founding Charvel Guitar Repair. lol Selling replacement parts and providing basic luthier skills, hiring Grover and then selling it to him only to see him go on and use Wayne's last name and turning a good profit off something Wayne had never considered doing.... Going back to visit Grover after he sold his interests to see him building and selling complete guitars, knowing that they were selling to all the famous and up and coming stars of the 80's.

I wonder if Wayne hired Grover to paint or work on guitars... he hired someone who actually had passion for what they were doing and took it to levels that he never dreamed possible.

This was the height of Wayne's Empire right here in this ad:

CharvelAd.jpg

"CHARVEL MFG. Now provides you with direct replacement bodies...."

Wow. Impressive.

[Grandturk]

I

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.

What does that have to do with anything? You say Grover and Wayne were both "screwed." Who screwed them? They we're screwed because they sold their companies? Wayne made bad business decisions, couldn't make money and sold his company name and equipment to Grover. Grover built a solid company off of that purchase as sold it to IMC.

As far as "being sued because they made better guitars" - show me the court documents. Because I think the most they may have received back in the day was a cease and desist order. Remember after the pointy headstock came out, no one wanted the Strat style headstock. You could order either one and you can see less and less were ordered after the pointy was available. As far as lawsuits, only thing you might find is Jackson/Charvel suing Gibson for using the Charvel name on their guitars when Wayne was working there.

[pianoguyy]

This reminds me of the Poison vs Richie Kotzen saga.

Poison says: We found out the Rich was banging the drummers wife. We pulled the bus over, physically threw him out, and have never heard from him again.
Kotzen says: I befriended, starting dating and eventually married, the drummers former fiance. Later, due to creative differences, the band bought me out of my share of the business.

Of course he is going to say that, he doesn't want to be known as the guy that bangs other people's wives and didn't want to be known as the guy that got beat up by three crossdessers.
And it makes total sense that they say their version, because who wants to be known as the guys that find out one guy is tapping the other guy's broad so they wrote him a huge check to go away.

Me, personally, I am just tired of people thinking that I am Richie Kotzen.


So let Wayne tell his version of history through his rose tinted glasses. Other's will always be around to tell their version long after he is gone.

[lefty]

LMAO! Piano, you've got a way with words!

[Nightbat]

Maybe some of you don’t want to realize that I’m not taking anything away from all the awesome stuff Grover did & still builds, but what I can understand why there’s so much hate for the guy that gave him his job building guitars.

By the way, if Wayne’s name was so disrespected by so many genius people, why the F*^k didn’t Grover change it? Was he that stupid too? Lol

You're the one trying to rewrite history, it was Grover who put the Charvel name on the map, not Wayne, there's a difference with offering a guy a job in a failing business and said guy turning it into a proverbial landmark all over the world
And nobody is putting hate on Wayne for giving Grover a Job, they're dismissive about Wayne's legacy because all he ended up as is a copycat leaching off of a history he got out of before it started

...Also seeing Wayne charge $300 for an autograph show's the character of a man in my book
Not even William Shatner was that greedy

As for using the Charvel name, recognition is important in business, Charvel was already recognized
Leo Fender was bought out long ago, they didn't change the name to "Thomas" (Larry Thomas, current CEO of FMIC) did they?
and I already explained Wayne's bitterness and thereby the opinions about him started after Grover turned the company into a success

[xenophobe]

And another thing...

Wayne wasn't even good at holding a steady job, was he? After he sold his business, he drifted around from company to company, never really finding a home... never really designing many desirable guitars until he started copying what Grover did and started Wayne Guitar. Right?

lol

edit: this is the unofficial rundown of his work history.

Hi Chris,ok,just from memory so the dates are approx.!!

(1978)Left Charvel Manufacturing
(1979)Redlands CA. Shop/W.C. Guitars
(1984)B.C.Rich
(1985)Mentone Shop
(1987)Gibson
(1989)Ritz Guitars w/Eric Galletta
(1992)WRC Guitars/Neptune Guitars w/Eric Galletta
(1999)Wayne Guitars

Hoss would probably have more specific info!!