Modern Guitars Magazine at Experience PRS 2007

by Rick Landers.

Experience PRS 2007 unofficially kicked off at Paul Reed Smith’s waterfront home in Annapolis, Maryland on Thursday, September 27, 2007. A phalanx of dealers from around the world, members of the press and special guests were invited to the meet and greet that included a private gig with Al Di Meola who debuted a finely crafted prototype PRS acoustic.

The PRS guitar-loving crowd congregated for the most part on the main floor, but many wandered about and found themselves upstairs in Paul's impressive home recording studio.

A good many on the guest list were dealers who had arrived from U.S. locations and from around the world to what Paul called a “PRS trade show.” Throughout the house, phrases in German, Japanese, and Portugese were heard, as well as some off-shore lingo from the gents who flew to Maryland from "Down Under."

Enjoying the hospitality on a couch upstairs was famed guitarist Johnny Hiland in his trademark black cowboy hat and winning smile. While on the floor below Al Di Meola was working his way through about sixty floor squatters who'd planted themselves in front of a mic and chair that had been set up for Al, who was taking a quick break from his tour with Stanley Clarke and Jean Luc-Ponty. Di Meola began to noodle with the prototype PRS single-cutaway acoustic that reflected the quality build and understated elegance many find appealing in fine instruments. And when Di Meola got around to spreading its wings, the acoustic proved to be a boomer and worthy of the PRS brand. The crowd settled in for a forty-five minute set of tricky fingerwork by DiMeola that was anchored by Greg Grainger's playful conga intervals.

We asked one of the partygoers if he was a dealer. He smiled and said, “No, I just own a couple of PRS guitars. I just got lucky to get in tonight!" By the end of the conversation it was interesting to discover the guy's idea of a "couple of PRS guitars" was thirty! And that number included a black beauty PRS guitar that he'd brought along hoping Al DiMeola would sing it.

It seemed the two-hundred party guests were well-heeled, but it became more pronounced the nnext day when one PRS owner landed his Robinson R-44 personal chopper in a field next to PRS operations.

Early the next morning, what started out as a short line quickly extended to the street when tour buses hauling PRS invitees from their hotels lined up near the registration area. The early birds signed up for the event and plant tours. Everyone was handed a bag with a 2007 PRS Catalog personally signed by Paul Reed Smith, an SE brochure as well as a free copy of
The Fretboard Journal magazine, a black “Experience PRS” baseball cap and a PRS T-shirt. A fishbowl filled with multi-colored PRS picks tempted all visitors to dip their calloused hands in and take a handful.

The friendly guy registering people and helping them sign up for tours was Jack Higginbotham, President, PRS Guitars. As the event unfolded throughout the weekend Jack could be seen smiling while taking care of business whether it meant fixing a flapping tent that was whipping around in the wind, talking with dealers or giving a tour of the facility.

We hunted down Peter Wolf, PRS Director of Sales and Marketing and Rebecca Eaddy, Public Relations/Media Manager to let them know we'd arrived and hoped to see them around to talk guitars and to share our thoughts about Experience PRS as we experienced it.

The outflow of PRS fans from the buses continued to add to the numbers as well as to the depth of PRS knowledge and enthusiasm. Every visitor we ran into had their own PRS experience anecdotes to talk about that included their guitars, stories about the artists who played them and snippets of PRS history that sounded like PRS Trivial Pursuit. Each had experienced their own personal “Wow!” moments that Paul has described as the emotional response he seeks for every PRS customer when they open their guitar case for the first time and every time.

The event offered its own number of “Wow!” moments. An early one was when Paul asked a couple of his employees to bring him a guitar Carlos Santana sent to the Experience PRS trade show. Paul proudly showed the axe off to the crowd calling it “Number One”, the first guitar he’d given Carlos many birds and moons ago.

A steady stream of guitar enthusiasts stepped into the office area where Paul and his staffers work and were greeted by about one hundred PRS guitars ready to play, buy or simply dream about owning. In PRS lingo you could hear words and phrases like “ten tops”, “dragons”, "birds and moons", “SE” and a new one, “Mira.” The Mira is the newest PRS model to debut. The guitar is named after a star that in Latin translates to "wonderful.” Many of the Mira models were already tagged as sold.

Joe Knaggs, Director, R&D and Private Stock, noted, “The Mira is a good example of a great concerted effort between peers in marketing, R&D and production who have been working together for a long time. Our goal was to make a guitar that feels, looks and sounds different but keeps the quality, playability and unique PRS attributes.”

“The Mira is a new direction for PRS – flat body, pickguard, new pickups, 24 fret, retro looking vintage style guitar,” offered Paul Reed Smith, “but first and foremost, it is a wonderful sounding Maryland-based instrument.”

Smith was obviously pleased with the turn out of over 700 visitors for what he called the “first PRS trade show.” It was most likely the largest single company trade show in guitar history.

Serving as the Events Coordinator for Experience PRS 2007 was Beverly Fowler. Fowler handled logistics for the event and was surprised how smoothly everything was running, including the weather. Several large pavilion-style tents were hard fastened to the asphalt, twenty or more portable toilets stood patiently awaiting guests, a friendly and helpful security crew was on hand for emergencies and barbeque, chips and sodas were readied for Saturday’s crowd. "We planned a lot," Fowler noted, then emphasized, "and everything's running smooth, so far!"

Guitar seminars and facility tours were repetitively scheduled so no one would miss out on much of anything. Seminars would include discussions on guitar building, materials used in construction, Signature models with some seminars led by Paul who reminisced on the PRS odyssey. Joe Knaggs offered up an insider’s view on Private Stock guitar building while several of the PRS endorsees like Johnny Hiland, Gary Grainger and David Grissom ran seminars with clarifying explanations expressed through their instruments.

The Experience PRS's first seminar was presented by Al Di Meola around noon on Friday. Al held onto Paul's highly figured PRS Modern Eagle and explained how his journey with Paul began when they were both just starting out in their careers. As expected Di Meola threw in some licks on the guitar and later took questions from the audience. (See video clip above)

Many of the guitar company’s endorsees roamed the PRS grounds and all of them seemed at ease penning multiple autographs, smiling for photographs, and talking at length about PRS guitars with their fans.

The “big deal” event took place Friday night when the Paul Reed Smith Band took to the stage and jammed with the PRS endorsees.

A touching moment arrived when ETI Robin Feathers, U.S. Navy, joined Paul Reed Smith on stage. Paul officially discharged Feathers and informed the crowd that he could legally perform that passage.The crowd turned solemn to honor the service and sacrifices of all American men and women in uniform when Feathers re-upped for another hitch in the ceremony performed by his good friend Chief Warrant Officer Scott Farrell, U.S. Coast Guard. Later that evening Robin told us that he loved his own PRS guitars that he'd purchased with his previous two re-enlistment bonuses. Besides being a Navy man, Robin emphasized that he's also a guitar tech.

The wind along the Chesapeake Bay was picking up when the PRS band warmed up the crowd for guest artists that included “Dangerous” Dan Toler of the Allman Brothers, Derek St. Holmes (Ted Nugent and PRS Band), David Grissom (Dixie Chicks and Storyville), Paul Jackson Jr. (Session ace and American Idol), Nick Moroch (David Bowie and David Sanborn), Mark Tremonti (Creed/Alter Bridge) and Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge, Mike Scott from Justin Timberlake's and Prince’s bands, Chris Henderson of 3 Doors Down, Gary Grainger (PRS Band) and Greg Grainger and warp speed specialist Johnny Hiland.

After fiddling around to get his guitar tuned up, Mike Scott launched into some jazz dripping funk, prompting the guy sitting next to me to say, “Man, this is the BEST!”

Everyone was waiting for Hiland to get in gear and redline his Signature model PRS. Smiling as he stepped on stage, he obliged with a PRS “Wow!” moment planted on PRS soil. After a few licks he flipped his guitar over and there was a big “Thank you” in white block lettering.

Hiland left the stage for vocalist and guitarist Myles Kennedy and guitarist Mark Tremonti to take over. When Myles stepped up to the mic he hollered, “Let’s hear it for Johnny Hiland! How the hell are we gonna follow THAT shit?” Then he and Tremonti lit into some Zeppelin with Myles breathing fire and Tremonti keeping things supercharged on guitar.

The klieg lights were doused around 10:30 p.m. Saturday was scheduled to be heavy with seminars and music and the PRS camp followers needed some shut-eye.

Saturday was filled with instructive seminars and company tours. For our tour, we entered a side door near the back of the PRS plant. Joining the group was Jack Higgenbotham who served as tour guide. He and PRS's Rough Cut Manager, Rob Heuer, started the tour with insights about the types of wood used in guitar building, including what Heuer referred to as the “Holy Grail” of guitar wood, Brazilian Rosewood. Other samples included small slabs of curly rock maple, spruce, Korina and mahogany. An unusual wood and an interesting choice to use was from Africa called Sapele. Given Paul Reed Smith’s creative nature we wondered if he’d drawn some convoluted or magical relationship between making guitars out of a wood that had once been used to help propel World War I Zeppelins.

Jack walked the group through the various guitar building steps that included the introduction of CNC machines. They sped up production and helped the company integrate more safety into the production line. He led the group through the sanding area and explained how the slab bodies are carved and how hollow bodies are assembled. Sanding, drilling and routing then moved to finishing the bodies then crafting the necks, fitting the frets and inlaying birds and moons and finally electrifying the curvy instruments for the road.

When asked whether PRS guitars made today were as good as the originals, Jack replied, “My two cents for the record is, I think the guitars we build today are superior to guitars we built in the past. Everybody in the factory has the authority, so to speak, to move a guitar back to where it came from to be reworked. There are five department managers that really make this place flow as a business and they are integral in setting those standards, those parameters. One of the interesting things that happens at PRS, we call it developing the eye. You begin to see things that are invisible to other people and then over time those things begin to look pretty major to you. And so, now it’s kind of funny, I’ve been out of the production line for a few years as far as building guitars and they’ll bring me a guitar and ask 'What do you think?' and if they don’t tell me what it is, most of the time I can’t see it. They have taken it to another level of seeing these issues. They just have these incredible eyes! I know the products that are going out the door are as good as they can be or at least as good as we know how to make them.”

PRS wanted to make the event special for someone who couldn’t make the trip to Maryland, so offered us a cherry red PRS SE-One for a giveaway at Modern Guitars. Paul signed it first with, “EXP-PRS 2007 Paul Reed Smith” and later we asked Jack Higgenbotham and Peter Wolf to add their chops. We roamed the grounds seeking out the artists and I swear there were two or three Tremonti lookalikes who almost signed! We finally found the genuine article who took a silver Sharpie to it.

The final day was filled with seminars by Paul Reed Smith, Johnny Hiland (see video clip above) and Gary Grainger, Joe Knaggs, David Grissom, and J. Hayes. Hayes, Product Support Manager, gripped a Mira for a test drive and offered folks nearby to take it for a run and several had their ways with it.

The crowd was friendly and the mood relaxed. Before the tour we'd grabbed a bite to eat with Matt Blackett, Associate Editor, Guitar Player magazine, Jon Chappell from Harmony Central and a PRS owner who also built his own guitars. We’d later meet Bob Martin who had once played guitar for the '60s Welsh belter Tom Jones, Brian Wilson, Vice-President of Fox News and owner of one sweet blue Johnny Hiland Signature model, several PRS staffers and dealers from as near as Chuck Levin’s in Maryland to as far away as Tokyo. Everyone proved enthusiastic about this first PRS trade show and were visibly pleased when Smith suggested it was only the first of many

Most invitees thought the intended main attraction of Experience PRS 2007 was the debut of PRS's new Mira guitar. As cool as that guitar proved to be and hearing the prototype PRS acoustic on Thursday night, the highlight of the PRS trade show was the feeling that PRS dealers, endorsees and owners were one big family that has evolved over the course of the past few decades out of the hopes and dreams of a single visionary young man, Paul Reed Smith.

Related Links
PRS Guitars
School of Rock's National "PRS Shredfest" Champ Performs at PRS Guitars
Paul Reed Smith Interview
Johnny Hiland Interview
Peter Wolf Interview
PRS Guitars Introduces New Model, The Mira
PRS David Grissom Signature Model Guitar at 2007 Summer NAMM
Micheal G. Stewart Photography

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