Gibson‘s new CEO James “JC” Curleigh said to Vintage Rock at this year’s NAMM that the company is looking for a breakthrough product in the market. He targeted on the price of guitars. Take a look on what he said:
“One of them specifically is the Generation Series. You know, one of the challenges is making guitars in America and all of the amazing quality that we put in it, the wood sourcing and the craftsmanship – I said, ‘But can we do that and make our guitars more accessible?’
“And for the first time ever, we’re offering a $999,99 Gibson acoustic made in America. It’s the G45 and so far, it’s one of the most-played guitars out there.
“It sounds amazing and it’s that kind of guitar that when someone aspires to get a Gibson, you can say, ‘Yeah, it’s right there, you can get it.'”
On new directions:
“I think of it as like I have this obligation as a leader – we’re an iconic brand beyond just music. We’ve been synonymous for shaping the sound for 125 years through every generation and genre, and that’s our mission, to continue to find ways to create and deliver, and quite frankly, make our sound going forward.
“It leads us to our simple mission – we want to be the most relevant, most played, most loved guitar brand, or music brand, or simply brand again.
“I think we’re on our way, we really looked at the line and said, ‘What do people really want?’. You can imagine my world, right? ‘Hej JC, don’t go with changes, keep what you got… but what’s new?’
“So, what we did was go back to classics, the true specs of our classic, and then we said, ‘Modern players still want some modern alternatives,’ so we really stripped those down to give them only what they wanted. And on the acoustic side, we added the G45 and it’s an amazing new addition to the range.”
