Tom Anderson Guitarworks
A long view of a new Tom Anderson Short T showing the company’s trademark double strap buttons—which enable both quick strap adjustment and stable positioning on the floor.
Were you a player originally?
Yeah, I started guitar when I was eight years old,
convinced all through school that I was going
to be a rock star and buy my parents a condo
on Maui. I had a band in sixth grade, and later I
made a living playing around LA for about five
years after high school. Then I realized that I
wasn’t going be a rock star and buy my parents
a condo on Maui. I still loved guitar and did a
lot of tinkering on my own guitars: taking them
apart and changing pickups, etc. I would gig at
night, and during the day I would do repairs at
music stores around the area. In the late ’70s,
when disco happened and the playing situation
got bad, it became obvious that I wasn’t going
to make a living playing. I was thinking about
getting married, so I went to work building guitars with Dave Schecter in 1977.|
Trends have changed...When we
started in the ’80s, almost every
guitar we made had a Floyd Rose
tremolo on it. —Tom Anderson
When did you split from Schecter?
It was 1984. In 1982, Schecter was flounder-
ing financially and they brought in some
investors who decided to make stuff over-
seas because it would be cheaper. They
sent me to Japan to source stuff for them,
but that wasn’t what I wanted to do. Until
then we had made everything at Schecter:
we had a metal shop and a wood shop,
and we did the finishing right there. It was
a fun place to learn. Dave encouraged me
to leave. He said, “If you really want to do
what you want, you need to start your own
company.” That was the furthest thing from
my mind. Still, I came home from work and
told my wife that I quit my job. We had a
two-year-old and a baby due in two months,
but it worked out.
Did you start mostly making necks,
bodies, and parts?
