Ridgewing went quietly public for the first time in March 2015, exhibiting its full suite of prototypes at South-by-Southwest’s Music Gear Expo, and it was a blast. Austin rivals Nashville for being a music town, and at SXSW the streets the whole downtown is closed to traffic and all amps are turned up to 11. It was a great feeling to see these guitars we had all worked on so hard on put so many smiles on so many faces, young and old. We got used to looks of astonishment turning into big smiles and laughter.

The pre-Ridgewing Chrysalis guitar has a history with law enforcement. When you click these sleek black guitar parts together, the size, weight and general appearance of the procedure viewed from a distance can mimic that of assembling some kind of a rifle. When I first started traveling with the Chrysalis guitar in its travel case around 2001, I enjoyed watching the faces of airport security personnel when the guitar showed up on the X-ray machine.  There was always a puzzled look, then a closer puzzled look, then they would come over to me and ask what was in the case.  I would truthfully answer with a straight face that it was an inflatable guitar (the Chrysalis guitar was originally designed as an acoustic guitar with an inflatable Mylar body acting as the sound box). Then I would be asked to open the case to show what was inside. “What did you say this is?”, and I would again answer “An inflatable guitar”, which may have sounded like I was being a wise guy. Then they would say “Let’s see it”. Usually by this time another officer would come over to watch what was going on.  So I would open the case and start pulling the guitar parts out and assembling the guitar, which is a pretty fast procedure with this guitar, but just about typical for how long it takes to assemble a modular rifle, hence their interest in what I was doing. Now, just before you finally throw the headstock lever on this guitar to tension the strings, there is a move where you have to squeeze the body end of the neck into the body’s neck cavity, and the set screws engage, and they give off  a solid, audible “Click”. Just once, at this point I had an officer reach for their gun. But then they could see what I was holding out to them was a guitar-looking thing with guitar strings and a typical guitar’s size and shape, and they would relax. The best was when their look of formal concern gave way to astonishment and even a smile on occasion.  One even said to me as I was putting the guitar back in the case  “You know, I think my son would like one of those”. This guitar sells itself.

The guitar in this picture had a solid aluminum body, which may be why this officer wanted to pose with it. How many guitars out there make police want to pose with them?