UK guitarist, YouTuber and entrepreneur Rob Chapman has announced that he is now the co-owner of two US electric guitar firms: Californian pickup producer Guitarmory and its instrument manufacturing wing Cerberus Guitars.
Chapman made the announcement on social media at the beginning of the month, stressing that it would not affect his involvement at Chapman Guitars – the firm he co-founded with Lee Anderton of UK retailer Anderton’s.
The guitarist and YouTube personality previously tipped Guitarmory pickups back in the fall, when he posted a video about customizing his first Chapman prototype (originally built in 2011). It seems he’s been suitably impressed with the product.
“Guitarmory makes boutique custom shop, zero compromise, super high quality pickups in California,” says Chapman in his post. “We can make anything – P-90s, single-coils, relic'd, aged – the whole shebang.”
Cerberus, meanwhile, is described as a good bedfellow for his other brand: “Where Chapman kind of knocks on the door of heavy, pointy, scary guitars, Cerberus runs through that door and up the hill and continues onwards towards battle.”
However, there are further similarities between the firms. Like Chapman, guitar builder Cerberus has an imported range – Hades – that is produced in South Korea, but its meat and potatoes is really US-made high-end metal guitars.
For its part, Chapman offers almost the reverse split: focussing predominantly on outsourced South Korean builds, but recently announcing the arrival of a line of high-spec, UK-made instruments.
The move makes sense from this perspective as there will be mutual benefits in sharing knowledge of both domestic and imported guitar production between the businesses.
Chapman has also confirmed that the deal will should improve the distribution of both Cerberus and Guitarmory in the UK, stating on the latter’s Instagram that “we’re working some dealer angles now.”
Head to Guitarmory Pickups and Cerberus Guitars for more information on their ranges.
“Even those who couldn’t afford carved tops, fancy inlays or binding weren’t expected to compromise on their tone”: The tonal mysteries of Gibson’s P-90 dog-ear pickups, which got their due in the Les Paul Junior
“This pickup could have come out of a late-’50s Gibson. If you had a guitar from that era with these pickups, everyone would be like, ‘Wow. That’s a badass-sounding Les Paul’”: How Adam “Nolly” Getgood and Bare Knuckle reinvented the P.A.F. for a new era
