Luthier Roger Sadowsky 2016 Interview
Roger Sadowsky is a highly respected instrument maker, who has helped redefine the word luthier to include the subtext of brilliant handcrafted design. His instruments have been played by many of the world’s greatest artists including guitarists Jim Hall, John Abercrombie, Pat Metheny, Lee Ritenour, Chuck Loeb and bass players Marcus Miller, Will Lee, Rickey Minor, Michael Rhodes, Verdine White and Jason Newsted. Roger grew up in New York City in the 1950s and recalls his father listening to the big bands and his mom listening to songs from Broadway musicals. These early influences were the roots of his passion for music, which was kick-jumped by playing guitar in the spring of his junior year in college, learning to fingerpick by playing Gordon Lightfoot and Paul Simon tunes. Recorded 1/19/16.
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00:00One of the things I decided when I wanted to start my own business is I said if I'm
00:05going to be at the top of my game, I need to be where the top players are.
00:10So the choices for me were New York, L.A. or Nashville.
00:14And given I'm a New York boy, that's where I went home.
00:19But I really think if you do want to play at a certain level in this industry, you have
00:25to be where the top players are.
00:28You need their feedback of what's working for them, either live or in the studio.
00:34I think it's hard to be way out in the middle of nowhere and have that kind of interaction
00:39with your artists.
00:40So that's what's kept me there.
00:43But then after 23 years, we got priced out of Manhattan.
00:46I went to Brooklyn for 10 years, got priced out of a trendy neighborhood in Brooklyn.
00:51And now we're in Long Island City in Queens, right across the East River.
00:55Well, again, I started making guitars in 79, basses in 82.
01:01I always tried to keep a 50-50 balance of repair and restoration work and building.
01:06And I always intended my business to sell direct to the player.
01:11I wasn't looking to have a factory.
01:13I was an artisanal guitar maker.
01:17And that's the level I always wanted to keep it at.
01:20Plus, I wanted that one-in-one connection with the people who were buying my instruments.
01:27Honestly, selling to a buyer for a music store was not what got me excited.
01:33It was the whole creative process of meeting with the player, what's working for you, what's
01:38not working for you.
01:42And so that relationship, that direct relationship, has always been very important to me.
01:47But in 87, I connected with a boutique distributor in Japan named Okada International.
01:55So I've been sending instruments to Japan on a monthly basis ever since then.
02:02But in 2000 and, I'm going to, no, in 1991, there was a guitar maker, a bass maker in
02:12Japan named Yoshi Kikuchi, who was very much an admirer of my instruments.
02:18And he approached my distributor, and they hired him, and they sent, he came to New York
02:24and spent a year working by my side, learning how I do things.
02:29And then he went back to Japan, and under the umbrella of my distributor, we started
02:33a small production in Japan.
02:35We didn't use any of the existing factories.
02:38We found veterans of the fading guitar industry in Japan at that time, and we put our own
02:45workshop together.
02:46And that created my Metro line of basses.
02:49And so that's our dealer line.
02:51So they're extremely high quality, artisanal made, as well as what I do in New York.
02:57We keep it affordable by limiting the options.
03:02We don't do fancy wood options like I do in my New York shop.
03:06So they just represent the basic models of everything I make, and that is the line that
03:12we sell to dealers worldwide.
03:14And in my shop, I still primarily deal direct and take a much more artisanal approach.
03:19I have a fantastic inventory of woods I've been collecting for 50 years, and so the balance
03:27works out very well.