The most basic answer to the question, \u201cWhy do you make guitars out of hemp?\u201d is because everything should made out of hemp. It\u2019s a wonder material. You can eat it, you can use it for bedding, you can make cloth with it, you can use it for car parts or houses. That\u2019s the main reason for it. On top of building quality instruments we can educate people about this phenomenal natural product.<\/p>\n
In his workshop in a 200-year-old barn in rural Quebec, Boyd Pellow handcrafts electric guitars using traditional luthier methods to create beautiful instruments with optimal sound. The guitars are uniquely designed, using classic styles of the 50s and 60s for inspiration, and aside from the marijuana leaves emblazoned on each headstock, there\u2019s no indication that there is anything at all out of the ordinary about the instruments… until it comes out that they\u2019re built from hemp.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love walking up to people and saying, \u2018Guess what my guitar is made from,\u2019\u201d says Stewart Burrows, a professional musician who co-founded Canadian Hemp Guitars with Pellow in 2011. While the concept of hemp guitars definitely raises eyebrows and invites its share of questionings, the rationale behind their invention is totally sound. The use of hemp materials in guitars minimizes the role of the instrument in deforestation and the use of endangered woods, and under Pellow\u2019s careful construction they sound great, too.<\/p>\n
Along with being more eco-friendly instruments, Canadian Hemp Guitars are also relatively affordable. The manufacturers\u2019 suggested retail prices for the base level instrument is $1,600 but they are likely to street around $1,300 to 1,350, depending on the dealer (guitar dealer, that is). Three distinct, customizable styles are already available for purchase, and more designs are on the way. Although Canadian Hemp Guitars is not the first company to build hemp instruments, they\u2019re the first to design them with working musicians in mind. Though the company is still in its early stages, its success hints that more guitar companies could follow suit and produce their own versions of hemp guitars down the line.<\/p>\n
With my newfound discovery that the future of rock music could quite literally lie in fields of cannabis, I had to find out more from the experts themselves. My conversation with Burrows follows:<\/p>\n
Noisey: What brought you and Boyd together and how did you form your company?<\/p>\n
Stewart Burrows: Boyd and I met 25 years ago. He was a guitarist in the first band I ever sang in. I\u2019m a musician by trade. That\u2019s my main source of income. He\u2019s been a luthier for about 30 years now. About 10 years ago, he started fooling around with building electric guitars out of non-traditional materials. There\u2019s no reason to use tone woods that are becoming more and more endangered and rare when other materials are absolutely appropriate for making electric guitars. So he started making guitars out of all kinds of things and finally about seven or eight years ago, there was a company out of Chatham, Ontario doing some testing with hemp fiber basts, and using these basts in compression molding and making this bio-composites. He received some samples, built himself a heated press out of an antique book press. He started making these panels and it developed from there. We built our prototypes in 2011, decided to start the company, and that\u2019s where we are today.<\/p>\n
Are Canadian Hemp Guitars the first hemp guitars on the market as far as you know?<\/p>\n
No, there are a couple of other companies that make them. There was a company back in the early 2000s called Mada Guitars out of Europe. They made very, very beautiful and very, very expensive instruments that I believe were construed more as museum pieces than as players\u2019 guitars. They went for these really strange shapes and they wanted to show off this new technology as opposed to making a players\u2019 instrument. Then there is a company out of Germany called Miller Guitars that makes one of their models out of hemp and the others out of carbon fibers. Their model was similar to ours in that they are using nontraditional methods to make guitars, but again, they are very expensive.<\/p>\n
Our instruments are players\u2019 guitars built using traditional luthier methods. We basically treat this high-density hemp wood like normal wood and build our guitars in that fashion. They\u2019re priced for players, for people to actually be able to afford them and take them out and play them. That\u2019s the difference.<\/p>\n
There have been certain restrictions on building industrial hemp products in the States. Is that something that\u2019s come up with manufacturing or shipping your instruments?I\u2019ve asked US Customs and there is absolutely no problem with importing the goods. I believe with industrial hemp, the restrictions have been lifted for importing because most of industrial hemp comes into the US from Canada now. I haven\u2019t encountered any problems whatsoever.<\/p>\n
How did you develop the prototypes for your instruments?<\/p>\n
If I had to compare it, I would say it is a hybrid between a 50s Danelectro and an early Les Paul Jr. with a flat back, a chambered inside, and a solid basswood sustain block in the middle. There\u2019s still is some wood in the guitars\u2014our necks are mahogany\u2014so it\u2019s a question of using the hemp where it is smart to use the hemp. I\u2019d say it plays very much like a Les Paul. There\u2019s a tremendous amount of sustain, you play a chord and it hangs there for a long time. It\u2019s very responsive to a tube amp.<\/p>\n
What sort of volume do you produce each year? Obviously these are handmade instruments…<\/p>\n
Our volume is very low right now. We build to order, but again, we\u2019re just starting. We built the brand for a good year before we got anything besides prototypes out the door. We\u2019re looking to grow slowly. It\u2019s a small shop right now, just Boyd and myself and some part time help every once in a while. We\u2019re just in the process of looking beyond that right now. We\u2019re branching out into a line of ukuleles, called \u201cHempaleles,\u201d of course. We\u2019ve been gearing up for that in the last month or two. We\u2019ve had a lot of interest in them and we\u2019d like to have them down in the States before Thanksgiving for the Christmas rush.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your distribution like in the States?<\/p>\n
Small music stores, absolutely. Some head shops, of course, we can\u2019t avoid it with what it is. If anyone who wants to sell them, we\u2019ll certainly make them available for sale.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re selling these at guitar stores and at head shops? So, who is buying your instrument?<\/p>\n
Guitar players who are looking outside the box are buying our instruments. If you have $1000 and want to buy a Strat, by all means, go buy a Strat. I\u2019m looking for people who think outside the box and want to try something new. It\u2019s very, very rare that someone picks up my instrument and tells me they don\u2019t like it. It\u2019s a great instrument and it plays really well.<\/p>\n
I think some of the headshops like to have a guitar made out of hemp because it\u2019s a guitar made out of hemp and it looks great on their wall. It\u2019s a striking guitar, you know? I think we\u2019ll probably do better in the headshops with the ukes. A lot of my interest and a lot of people who are pre-ordering these instruments come from that community. They\u2019re good ukes, too. They\u2019re not gimmicky at all. They\u2019re loud and they project well. And if you\u2019re in a headshop and looking to make an impulse buy it\u2019s easier to spend $150 on a uke than $1500 on a guitar.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d imagine you see a lot of surprised looks on people\u2019s faces and get a lot of goofy questions when you tell them you make hemp guitars.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you smoke them?\u201d is goofy question number one, obviously. There is a lot of skepticism on the phone or right before they play it. \u201cOh, this is a gimmick. It can\u2019t be a real instrument.\u201d Then they play it and they change their tune.<\/p>\n
Some guitarists have a prejudice against composite material guitars. Do people question the quality of the hemp materials in your instruments?<\/p>\n
Absolutely, that\u2019s something we fight against. \u201cWhy would I pay $1500 on a plywood guitar?\u201d You try your best to educate people, but at the end of the day, all you can do is make a quality product and wait until they get it in their hands. If someone doesn\u2019t want to put it in their hands, that\u2019s OK, you can\u2019t please everyone all the time. We\u2019re about building the highest quality instruments we can. Boyd studied under Charles Fox in Oregon, one of the finest builders the States have seen in 50 years. He\u2019s a great builder and I have nothing but confidence in him.<\/p>\n
Part of the reason you decided to build guitars out of hemp in the first place were the environmental factors. That\u2019s maybe something many people don\u2019t take into consideration when it comes to guitars or other \u201crock\u201d instruments.<\/p>\n
I play a 1962 Martin D28. The back and sides are made out of Brazilian rosewood and you can\u2019t get that anymore. And why not? Because it became rare because it was overused. Who\u2019s to say that\u2019s not going to happen with swamp ash? I\u2019m not saying that it will, but it\u2019s something to think about. On top of that, it takes 30 years to grow a swamp ash tree to the size you need it to be to build a guitar neck out of it. It takes one season to grow hemp to be able to build something out of it. It\u2019s about sustainability.<\/p>\n
The most basic answer to the question, \u201cWhy do you make guitars out of hemp?\u201d is because everything should made out of hemp. It\u2019s a wonder material. You can eat it, you can use it for bedding, you can make cloth with it, you can use it for car parts or houses. That\u2019s the main reason for it. On top of building quality instruments we can educate people about this phenomenal natural product.<\/p>\n
Is your method patented?<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t have the money to defend a patent, don\u2019t pursue a patent. It\u2019s not worth it. If someone wants your idea, they\u2019ll take it. I could have things made a lot cheaper in China, but I don\u2019t because the first thing that happens is they make your product, and then they knock it off. And the quality isn\u2019t the same. What we make are made by a pair of human hands. I like that. Eventually, the shop will get bigger but I don\u2019t want to lose that small shop mentality.<\/p>\n
Do you think you\u2019ll be training other luthiers around the world?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s something we\u2019re looking into. There\u2019s a great community of young luthiers in Montreal\u2014we\u2019re just outside of Montreal, and we\u2019re talking about maybe starting a mentorship program to get some young people in to start building. It\u2019s a great craft and that\u2019s how the knowledge has to be transferred. You can\u2019t learn everything from books and DVDs. It has to be taught hand over hand and side by side at a work bench. That\u2019s something we believe in. We\u2019re at that cusp right now where our prototypes are done and we\u2019re just starting to sell and build. It\u2019s a process and it involves a lot of discussion. It\u2019s exciting. It\u2019s something new, and I think it\u2019s the vanguard of instrument building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The most basic answer to the question, \u201cWhy do you make guitars out of hemp?\u201d is because everything should made out of hemp. It\u2019s a wonder material. You can eat it, you can use it for bedding, you can make cloth with it, you can use it for car parts or houses. That\u2019s the main […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[],"supplier":[8161,8162],"class_list":["post-22767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","supplier-canadian-hemp-guitars","supplier-miller-instruments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22767"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=22767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}