Music Man

This is a edited message that I responded to on our forum about the old 5150 guitar strings.

It is an example of you never know when you take a little creative initiative where it can take you.

5150 strings are what put EVH and I together….

For years the legend was that he only used Fender strings that had been boiled.  We had dealings  with Rudy Leiren EVH’s high school buddy/longtime tech on other stuff but they kind of kept a lot of the mystery of EVH’S sound.  A lot of the stuff was just playing with people like David Lee Roth Paternity insurance, no brown m&m’s and stuff…..

So a Guitar World Magazine cover around 1989 or 90 had EVH standing in the hovel known as 5150 Studios…He had just named the studios that and had fell in love with the whole 5150 idea.
Scattered on the ground at his feet were some real acme string envelopes…..I thought, hmmmmm another myth debunked….If he has those dogs we can kill it for him.  The challenge is how do I get his attention?

So I sneak in the art department when my dad was at lunch (back then that was his turf)…….I took stencil and made red labels with a very funky black stencil with 5150 in big letters and guitar strings in small…… I went to the factory and scraped up some old pure nickel and had the guys make them in Eddie’s gauge…I sent them to Rudy who showed then to Eddie and the very next day the phone rings and its EVH.

He said ” I just got these strings and they are hysterical and great strings too…thanks man….”  I said “Do you want to know what would be more hysterical?”  He bit on the bait and I said ” How about if you could make a bunch of money and have your own brand of guitar strings at the same time”  He was all over it and said when can we get together?

My dad was a pilot and had a single engine Bonanza…he and I flew to LA and picked up EVH, Rudy (who was not small) Engineer Donn Landee and another guy and we flew to the factory in SLO. I remember taking off at Van Nuys and a loud buzzer went off and I thought for sure it was weight related (Dont crash Dad!) but we made it fine.

When we got to the factory I gave them a tour and Eddie got to drive some of my Dad’s cars.  It was time to talk business.  I had passed the groups test.  I said one thing. ” I understand that you have a relationship with Kramer (secret ownership)  It’s been great meeting with you but I am not in the business of designing products for competitors….Are you sure that you can do this?”  He said ” I wouldn’t Bleepin be here if I couldn’t”.  He liked my royalty deal and it was to the races, or so I thought.

A few weeks later my good friends at DAddario (this business is actually quite friendly) called  me and said “Kramer just sent this string package to us to duplicate and it looks like something you were involved with….whats the deal?”

I called Eddie and said, “WTF….You gave me your word”…..He said “I dont know anything about it”
I said that I anticipated this and had registered as a trademark 5150 for guitar strings in between the time of sending him the strings and his visit and that if there were going to be 5150 strings I would be involved.  He said “I own 5150!”  I said “Not for guitar strings”  He said “Are you trying to rip me off?”  I said “No, I won’t come out with them if you aren’t involved but you can’t come out with them if I’m not involved”  I told him I would give him the trademark in exchange for a 20 year license.  The attorneys said money had to change hands so I sold it to him for $20.00 but actually as a joke I told him I would only accept a bowling ball….True story I sold the 5150 trademark for a bowling ball. (Oh yeah and a 20 year license that I gave back when we separated….something I didn’t have to do, btw  Karma is a good thing.)

It turns out Kramer was trying to mess with me. Eddie had no idea that they had done what they did.  They sent me a letter saying that they had to be involved with EVH as he was a silent owner and was contractually obligated to include them in any products in the music business. (The original 5150 strings were Kramer by Ernie Ball on the back of the label)  So I made a a deal where I would sell the strings to Kramer and they would pay EVH the agreed upon royalty.  A couple of years went by and EVH’s  in my opinion over her head junior accountant turned business manager called and said “You have never paid us royalties, I want an accounting immediately or I will issue a cease and desist order.  I said “Wait a minute…Kramer is my customer I have paid them promptly and have zero obligation to provide you with an accounting.  If you haven’t been getting royalties talk to Kramer.”  She asked for the accounting again and I repeated that I didn’t have to but added, “If you ask Kramer for an audit and send me proof then I will give you an audit”

Lets just say that was the end of EVH and Kramer.  Our accounting was perfect and without casting any aspersions or allegations there allegedly a disconnect between the recieving and paying of royalties on Kramers part to EVH.  EVH went red assed mad and severed the relationship with Kramer.

The in my opinion over the head business manager (Who later got hers…thank god.) was now in the position of finding a new guitar company for EVH.  There wasn’t anything that jumped out at them.  I said “How about if I make a guitar in the interim?”  We dont make enough to satisfy the demand but I can promise a great guitar, and we can make him anything he needs. We quickly designed and built a guitar that Im very proud of.  Eddie made great music and some decent royalties.  We made whatever he needed from double necks to baritones.

The rest is history and most of the ending history is full of rumor and falsehoods and hurtful internet gossip. The relationship was a time bomb from a personal and business relationship. EVH had some well publicized issues and there was never any way where it could make the business people happy. We just weren’t big enough, and EVH and I hit the wall.

The less said the better. It was ugly and didn’t have to be. We weren’t the only company that had the privelidge of working with EVH. We weren’t the only company that parted ways in a difficult manner.  I take it as a backhanded compliment that there is more interest in our era than the others. Maybe thats who some of the BS is out there.

I enjoyed the opportunity to participate in the creative process and be an integral part in a very important period of a gifted musician.

But like most things with my family it started with a little creativity, integrity, and a guitar string.

I was twenty two……but I want to be 17 again. It’s a blog….I get to. I want to talk about Albert Lee.

The Ball Family was always surrounded by music;. Family get togethers were everyone playing or singing something. If we weren’t doing that we were listening. Everything from Western Swing to Summer of Love Rock and all in between From Bob Wills through Lenny Breau all the way to Cream and beyond. We were always the ones that baffled record store clerks…..(That is like talking about the ice delivery man) with the varied stack.

One day my Dad came home and got all of the three Ball boys and said “You have to s listen to this guitar player, He is unbelievable”..”Yeah Dad”…..So he hands me this green double album from a English band named Heads Hands and Feet. He plays the first track and it is a really wild up tempo country song called Country Boy with just mind blowing stop break fills and solos. We wore it out. We could not believe this guitarist was English and played rippin’ country. That’s how I discovered Albert Lee.

So we couldn’t wait to see him live. They had to be touring. We checked the paper and low and behold Heads Hands and Feet were opening for Jethro Tull at the Los Angeles Forum. Martin Barre of Jethro Tull used our stuff so we were in with tickets. My Dad Took the three boys and we couldnt believe that Albert was playing a black SG and playing to a disinterested crowd. HH&F were a rock band but their last song was Country Boy. The crowd could have cared less…they wanted AquaLung….We didn’t get to meet Albert that night but saw the next night that he was playing the Whisky A Go Go…I had to see him again so I dragged a coupla buds and we went to the Whisky. The Whisky is a legendary club that was back then a wild scene and not a pay to play dump that I think it is today. It was really small and fun. I was sitting next to a girl that wearing a big black coat and when she took it off she was wearing an Ernie Ball T Shirt….I started talking to her and she said she was with the Guitar Player from Heads Hands and Feet…I told her that was wild as we were there to see him and that my Dad was Ernie Ball. She said Albert gave her the shirt somewhere. After the show she took us back to meet Albert.

He was as excited to meet me as I was to meet him. we talked guitars and I asked about the SG and he said that a friend was a roadie for Pete Townsend and that this was a guitar that Pete had smashed and that he pal rebuilt it and gave it to Albert as Al didn’t have a good guitar. The only problem is that he couldnt put any pressure on the guitar as the thing was glued together and it would go wildly out of tune.

I asked him how many more days he was in LA and if he would like to come to Newport Beach and see the factory and meet my Dad. He jumped on the invitation and drove down the next day. I couldn’t believe it. He stayed the evening for dinner with the whole family and we all played and sang. It was like he was in the family.

So the tour ends and he goes back to England. He gets a call for a session in LA and needs a place to stay so he writes me and asks if he can crash at my moms house, (My parents were newly divorced then) I said sure…He said just for a couple of nights..he stayed a month. We jammed and had a blast. I couldn’t play Country Boy back then as I would listen to his playing and lose my time….He ended up playing with my Band for my High School Winter dance….He played Wurlitzer electric piano most of the night. What was he doing at 28 playing with a 17 year olds high school band? He loved playing, still does. There are countless stories of him sitting in lobby bars or tiny pubs or playing so and so’s party.

One of the great things we did back then was drive to the northern border of the San Fernando Valley and go to a place called the Sundance Saloon. They had a Tuesday night Jam hosted by Don Everly. The band was Buddy Emmons, Byron Berline, and just about every legend at the time even Glen Campbell..everyone. I wasnt old enough but sometimes I would sit out front and sometimes they would let me in. I remember sitting outside one night and the kid next to me was a guitar from Oklahoma named Vince….Vince Gill.

At the time Albert was becoming one of my best friends but he was playing a Tele and Fender strings. He wouldn’t use ours at first but familial pressure won out and he has for over thirty years. I started workng with Leo and Tommy and told them about Albert. I told Albert that if he played his cards right I could take him to Leo’s secret lab where he was starting a new line and he could meet Leo. Albert fell in love with Tommy’s amp and was like a little kid meeting Leo. Leo was a country guy at heart and loved Albert’s playing. Albert still uses Music Man amps wherever possible.

When we bought Music Man Albert was a died in the wool Tele guy and he was watching with a lot of support what Dudley and I were doing. I think he was being a nice and supportive friend at first by giving the Silhouette a go occasionally and using it for a few tunes during a gig. He started to really like it because of the weight and balance and tone.

I finally figured out how to play Country Boy and Albert and I started doing some local gigs. I played bass but really wanted to get better at guitar so I started this band Biff Baby’s Allstars so I could be the guitar player…..I got my junior high and high school buddy John Ferraro who was with Larry Carlton straight out of High School and he got this amazing keyboard player named Jimmy Cox and I asked Freebo who was with Bonnie Raitt and we got a gig in a club called Sid’s Blue Beat in Newport Beach in June of 1984. My guitar playing lasted less than that gig because Albert said “you are doing a gig and you didnt ask me? I became the rhythm guitarist and played bass on the country stuff. My brother Sherwood sang.

We went on to do a bunch of the hot clubs like the Palomino Club in LA and the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach. We were this really wild bar band that played everything from Sam Cooke to Jerry Lee Lewis. It was just the best time of my musical life. We went on to tour Europe, Japan and Australia (Most of those with Steve Morse too)…some twice. We used to also do double drummer gigs with Chad Whackerman from Zappa and Holdsworth. Even in the EVH days Eddie was an Allstar and we played a New Years gig with Albert, Luke, and Eddie Van Halen and the Malibu Inn….We would be hanging out and say lets do a gig tomorrow and call the Palomino or the Belly Up down in Solana Beach and say….”Pay the band that you have booked and tell them to come party with us we want to play.” Some of those gigs were pre You Tube priceless. The Allstars. Jay Graydon and Dweezil would sit in on the Palomino gigs. The All Stars still to this day play but usually for Casey Lee Ball Benefits or someone in the bands wedding, divorce or funeral. We can’t get hired anymore.

In the middle of 1986 I went to lunch with Dudley and said “lets design something whacky…I mean Jetson’s whacky ….50’s retro space age…but make it balance like a strat. Back then before computer drafting and design you actually had to draw it. He went to work and I loved the thing on paper. Dudley finished it in time for he Ernie Ball company Christmas party wher Albert and The Allstars were playing. I was so excited I showed it to Albert…..”Look what Dudley made for me!” Albert said “Oh Dear or Goodness me” and fell in love with it and I gave it to him on the spot. I owned it for 10 seconds. Dudley didn’t mind and Albert now played one of our guitars but it was called the Axis and it didn’t get put into production until 1993 as the Albert Lee model.

All of our artists are done with a handshake and no contracts. My third son is Casey Lee Ball and the Lee is after Albert. Funny enough I am Godfather to all of Albert’s Kids. I am also Godfather to Lukes new daughter Lilly Rose and Steve Morse’s son Kevin who is a teenage shredder. I was best man for Steve Morse, Luke and Albert. Not bragging just explaining that our relationships are way beyond normal and the friendship comes first.

I still consider Albert Lee to be my favorite guitar player. I love and adore the others but Albert is special to me. They all know it. Albert spends much of his time now in England and I don’t get to see him very much but we are in touch a bunch. I wanted to dedicate this posting to a great player and a better man. My friend Albert Lee.

The great thing about those times is that the lines were blurred. I was helping Leo, beta-testing amps for Tommy, getting them artists. I remember Tommy askng my Dad if he could hire me. My Dad said it was my choice. Talk about conflicted. I could be on the ground floor with my godfather and Leo Fender or I could stay in the family business. I chose Ernie Ball. I really didn’t have a choice as I have mentioned it is what I felt preordained to do.

One of my favorite artist stories was Eric Clapton. When you deal with artists many times your relationship with the Roadies, (or Tech’s as they now are called because everybody needs a more interestng title these days) is much more important than the relationship with the artist. Especially when the artist is high proile. Many of those artists rely solely on the Roadie to keep them current and trust their recommendations to this day. Actually these days it is the rule. Access to a star is about zero and going to a show is really nothing like the old days. There are some great exceptions today primarily Slash, who is a great member of he Ernie Ball Family. Remind me to tell you of Paul Mc Cartney….fantastic gentleman.

So Eric had some issues back then and sort of reemerged ad ended up in with a bunch of players from Tulsa. He had a great and wonderful Roadie named Willie Spears who used to work for Leon Russell. Willie was just a fantastic down home guy that really cared and was really fun to be around. Eric had just finished 461 Ocean Blvd that the Tulsa guys and him recored in Miami…you know the one with the Bob Marley cover of “I Shot the Sherriff”.

Willie called to place his string order to prepare for Eric’s first tour in awhile and we were chewing the fat and I asked him what he was doing for amps and he said that Eric was using Fender Dual Showman’s but was looking for something more powerful and something with a master volume. I said that there was this new company that my godfather started with some old Fender veterans ( Icouldnt mention Leo as his non compete clause was still in effect with CBS) and they had these new amps that were really good sounding and built lke a tank. He was curious and asked if I could bring some to the Long Beach Auditorium to sound check for Eric to check out. This would not happen today. I said sure then called Tommy and first off had to tell him who Eric Clapton was and convince hnim that it was worth bringing amps to Long Beach. I told Tommy to trust me that if Eric used the amps that he would be set.

We loaded up Tommy’s 67 Cadillac Sedan De Ville with two heads and two cabinets and barle fit in to drive there. Willie meets us at the loading dock and Im sure is scratching his head. Heere is this skinny kid along with a grandfatherly guy in his overloaded Caddy and golf clothes with these amps. We set them up and I played a little and so did Willie and he was sufficiently impressed to bring Eric out. Eric was knocked out and wouldn’t give those prototypes back. Tommy asked if he could have a photo for endorsement purposes and Eric said as long as he got the amps. That was the first endorsement ad for Music Man…..It was Eric standing in front of the amps with a Gibson Explorer with the title “There is only one Music Man”. Tommy trusted me and ran with it and it really jumped started the amps. Eric used Music Man amps for many years. The ad ran internationally and the amps were off to the races.

Now Tommy is building a team that included so many Fender veterans one being this blond German lady named Uschi Eastman who was a really great International sales manager. To most of the smaller US companies we didnt understand export. Tommy asked me if we needed any international help. I went my boss at Ernie Ball and asked him if he wanted Uschi’s help and he said that we were covered and that all you needed was Japan, Germany, France, and England. (Kind of like Spinal Tap when the manager said “Boston isnt a college town”)

I thought about what to do and decided that I would go ahead and ask Uschi for a list of names in various countries and send out a mailing to those people and see what came of it. I actually believed the world was biger than 5 countries. So I took the list and after hours sent the stealth mailing out. Twenty two countries responded with orders. That was the straw that broke the camels back with the Sales Manager. Besides being hyper, loud, and uncontrollable I had shown him up for the last time and he quit. I remember the next company boasting that they got the brains of Ernie Ball.

Now I’m 22 and my Dad sits me down and says, “Sterling, you act like you have all the answers. You can have the Sales Manager job..you have one year. If you grow the business you have a job. If you don’t your done” I did pretty well and the first year the business with 14 employees was up 50% and I had a job.

We are settling in and things are going well. My Dad is Salesman/Graphic Artist/Product Designer/Back up shipper /and chief bottle washer. The kids are still showing up after work to stuff labels into strings and I got the pleasure of filing invoices. Back then there were just two other employees, Marie Farley the pick printing lady and a guy who I wont mention his name as he started as a 12 year old student and worked for my dad and handled all the shipping into his adulthood.

My Dad decided to get a local accountant and the first thing the guy wanted to see was the check register and cancelled checks. The unnamed employee became very nervous and was reluctant to turn over the checks and registers. He kept telling my dad that the accountant was just trying to boost his billings and that the employee was handling it fine. My Dad forced the guy to turn over the stuff and the accountant calls my Dad and says, “Someone has forged a bunch of checks and the total is about $27,500.” My Dad confronted the guy and he broke down into tears and admitted that at first he was just advancing himself money but it got out of hand. My father prosecuted and also went after Bank of America because the forgeries were so bad. That happened in 1969.

The other thing he did was another example that he taught me about trying to make a good result out of a bad experience. He sat back and said “If someone can steal $27,500.00 and I dont notice it, then there is some real potential here.” It was a wake up call to run his business properly and pay a little more attention and see where it could go. Off it went and those were exciting times. When you are very small incremental growth was exciting. We added a sales guy and a Sales Manager.

I had decided that I needed work experience outside of my Dad. I went to work at a little guitar store called Island Guitars on Balboa Island. Wow, what a crash course in entrepenourship……My boss was a character who fought with his wife in the store, lie to the creditors, flirt with the customers and play in the restaurant down the block at night. My favorite was when a housewife would try to grind on him for a discount…he would start by scratching his head really hard and putting his shoulders back with his pot belly sticking out…if they kept grinding he would go his failsafe closing move…..He would scratch his ‘privates’. THe housewife would just say I’ll take it and rush out of the store. I was managing the store at 16 and having a blast. I would restring guitars when time alloted and do all the little things we did in the Tarzana days. I was playing in bands, managing the little store and buying and selling stuff on the side as none of the Ball kids got allowances in rich Newport. I didnt care because I liked buying a Danelectro for 15 dollars and selling it for 30.

In my travels scouring things to buy and sell I used to drop into this quirky hippy amp company called Quilter Sound Company. It was run by a genius named Pat Quilter and his right hand man Barry Andrews. I got Crump’s son to run the woodshop and I sort of ran the retail part. There was basically no retail but what a blast. I remember that one day they were about 6 weeks behind in paying me and Barry was sick of my act and I was sick of his and I quit probably before Barry could fire me. I got a amp head and two cabinets for back pay. Barry went on to hire his brother who had just graduated from business school and they had this crazy idea to just make power amps. It was wildly sucessful and they are now known as QSC. They are all really nice and good people who deserve their success.

It’s now early 73 and I decide that I will try to get a job with Ernie Ball. I dont ask my Dad, I go to the sales manager and tell him that I wanted to be a road rep for Southern California. He didnt want me in anyway shape or form. I said “Give me a month, a gas card and that old Chevy out in the parkng lot that was unused, pay me only on what I sell and if it isnt worth it, then fire me.” “Oh, yeah and lets keep this between us”

I sold a lot of strings and stuff that month. So much that I had a job. My Father didn’t find out until about 6 weeks into it he wanted to know where the Chevy was. I was rolling….calling on the sole Guitar Center in a Santa Suit at Christmas and hitting record stores in between my appointments. Great times and then the first gas crisis hit and we couldnt get any gas. I was asked to temporarily come inside and work the telemarketing. I never went back out.

Its now 75 and my Godfather and other mentor Tommy Walker had started Music Man with Leo Fender and Forrest White. Leo Fender had sold his company in 1965 to CBS because he thought he was gravely ill. CBS bought a very happening and profitable company and couldnt believe it when the real corp guys got in there. There were no MBA’a and the guy who ran the production was Forrest with no degree and they forced him out with a manufacturing expert that came from Waste King garbage disposals. They looked at the sales staff and all of them made more than the president of the United States. They forced them out one by one. Music Man was a collection of talented and skilled castoffs or people who just couldnt take CBS.

I got invited to the lab to see what they were up to. They handed my this bass log that had this big pickup and three knobs. We plugged it in and I couldnt believe it. It was like watching High Definition television for the first time. I made some suggestions that I didnt know any better than to realize that I was offering advice to Leo Fender. Leo liked it and I signed on as a beta tester and lab rat after work at Ernie Ball on the phones………

Part whatever coming again soon!