three lines of jaw-droppingly gorgeous instruments, including solidbody and hollowbody
electrics, a series of acoustics (with or without
cutaway), and two basses. All are available in
three different “tiers,” with tier- 1 axes being
stuffed to the gills with eye-popping goodness and tier- 3 guitars being geared more
toward working guitarists. Prices range from
$2900 to $7000 for 25. 5"-scale Chesapeake
series electrics, $4500 to $10,500 for
Chesapeake acoustics, $3000 to $10,000 for
24. 75"-scale Influence electrics, and $3000 to
$4500 for Chesapeake basses.
We spoke with Knaggs to get the story behind
his new venture with Wolf just prior to the worldwide debut of Knaggs Guitars at Musikmesse.
Are you guys getting excited for the
Frankfurt show?
Yeah, but I’m so entrenched in getting the
guitars built that I haven’t even really thought
about going there [laughs]. That happens when
you’re trying to get things done and working
10, 15, 16 hours a day. You can’t even think that
much about what the next week is holding.
Joe Knaggs sanding the sides of a Chesapeake series acoustic.
“If you were an artist painting all the time but
someone else’s signature was on the bottom, at
some point you’d want to make sure you were
signing your own paintings,” he explains. “That’s
the main reason I left. Maybe I was ready for
another challenge, too. I’d kind of done everything there that I wanted to do. The next step
would’ve been to become some kind of executive sitting in an office, and that’s not me.”
Before the year was through, Knaggs and
Wolf had joined forces for what very well may
be 2010’s most intriguing guitar story—the
creation of Knaggs Guitars. For both men, the
partnership seemed an obvious fit. “I’ve known
Joe pretty much since the middle of the ’90s…
and not only were we colleagues, we also
became close friends,” says Wolf. “I took him
around the world—I brought him to Japan,
I took him to Europe. We did Private Stock
carving sessions and stuff like that. I thought
he was an extraordinary designer and builder.
He’s one of these people who can do it all: he
can draw, he can carve, he can design, he can
build. There aren’t that many people out there
who can do that.”
Unveiled at the Musikmesse 2010 trade show
in Frankfurt, Germany (see p. 118 for our
show coverage), Knaggs Guitars features
Before we talk about your new guitars, I
wanted to get a feel for the type of guitarist you are. What were your formative influences—as far as guitarists and bands, as
well as instruments?
I listen to everything, but I really come from a
jazz background. I listen to George Benson,
John McLaughlin, Pat Metheny, Jim Hall, Larry
Carlton, Larry Coryell, and a lot of those kinds
of players. But then I also listen to bluegrass—I
enjoy Tony Rice. One of my favorite guitar players of all time is Jeff Beck. In my opinion, he’s
the Miles Davis of guitar. I also listen to flamenco
music—y’know, Paco de Lucia. Steve Howe from
Yes was a big influence. Another one was the
Allman Brothers—I always loved the way Dickey
Betts and Duane Allman played. Neil Young was
a huge influence, one of my first. Frank Zappa,
too—Apostrophe was the first album I ever got.
What was your first guitar and amp?
My very first guitar was a Nagoya acoustic. My
sister and her husband at the time matched
the money that I put into it. It’s actually a pretty
good guitar. My second guitar was a Fender
Jaguar, but I got rid of that because it went
out of tune all the time. My third one was a
Gibson L- 5, a big archtop, and that thing was
not a very good guitar—it was actually a very
