January 2014 – At the NAMM show in Anaheim, I had a chance to sit down with the founder and CEO of Peavey Corp, Hartley Peavey. The NAMM is a mix of music, business, musicans, and inventors, all of whom have a passion built around music and performance. This hectic and diverse environment was a good place to meet up with Hartley, because this is his story and the philosophy for his company. We started by sneaking a few moments with Hartley as he was leaving a panel discussion on the directions and challenges in the industry with other music leaders including Gibson's CEO Henry Januszkiewicz; Bob Ezrin; Guitar Center's Gene Joly; Sweetwater's Chuck Surack; and Line 6's Marcus Ryle,which was moderated by Craig Anderton,
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Hartley Peavey with M&E Tech\'s Lidia Paulinska-Thompson
In the beginning - his dream was to be a guitar player
My father was a shop owner and he put me to work in his retail music shop when I was in the 7th grade. He was a great musician back in the 30’s, swing music. In 1957, I went to see Bo Diddley, and decided I wanted to be a guitar player, but the truth is I was never a good guitar player. I was pretty good at building things, but I didn’t have any money. So when I saw Bo Diddley, I went to my father and asked him to give me a guitar. He said no, I’ll get you lessons, and you learn to play and I’ll think about it. But I was a kid, I wanted it now. So make a long story short, I built my own. Then I wanted an amplifier, same story - when you learn to play, then I’ll get you an amplifier, then so I built my own amplifier. A friend of mine said - if you built me an amplifier like that, I’ll give you some guitar lessons, so I did and he did, and I spent 8 years trying to be a guitar player.
Moving forward - what went wrong with his dreams?
And I finally got good enough to be in a few little bands, but something terrible happened about that time. After I built all the gear that they needed, they kicked me out. And the first time that happened, you know, things happened. 2nd time it happened, well you know, into every life a little rain must fall. But the 3rd time it happened, I had to have a serious conversation with myself. So I looked in the mirror and I said well, it looks like you’re not gonna be a rock star, so what are you going to the do the rest of your life? Well, I love music, I love musicians. I think I’ll do what every musician I’d ever met up until that time told me, 'I would wish they would make good gear at a fair price'. That was in 1964, in the middle of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, All the companies, the big conglomerates, had bought into the music business and made the prices go up and the quality went down. And that’s when I got in the business.
A transition - starting his business in year 1965
I started making things a different way, a better way back in 1965, and that was 49 years ago. I started out by myself with a work bench. Then I hired a guy part time, then another guy, then another guy, then it just built up. I had no idea that Peavey would ever get to the size it is today. I said I would never have more than 25 years employees and we grew past that 40 years ago, but the company keeps growing. The wonderful thing, and the thing that keeps my interest, is every day I learn something, every day. And the wonderful thing about knowledge is, like radiation, it is cumulative. If you learn something every day and you spend enough days, all of the sudden... So we learned about sound reinforcement, we learned about loudspeakers, we learned about power amplifiers, we learned about microphones, we started making our own speakers because the speaker people wouldn’t listen. And by the way, the loudspeaker is the weakest link in any audio system from a car radio to the biggest sound system. If you turn the gain all the way up, the first thing that fails always is the loud speaker. And that’s why we make loudspeakers, because no one would listen to me. So we make our own speakers, and they’re better than anybody else’s. That’s why I make speakers. But we learned how to work with composites, so we make composite graphite guitars. We earned about 180 patents around the world, which I think is more than all of our competitors at our end of the business combined. We’re always doing different things. If you look around the show most of our competitors are making a thousand variations of the same stuff.
His thoughts - Every human being has a gift
No, I’m not a guitar player. I believe that we’re all given a gift. You can call it talent, you can call it ability, it doesn’t matter what you call it, but every human being has a gift. And the trick in life is to figure out what you’re good at and then do it. What would happen to me if I stayed and played music? I would be miserable, unsuccessful, but I thought for years that I got shortchanged. I didn’t get shortchanged; I just didn’t get what I wanted. Because I tell you, I was a good musician. That’s what I would be doing. But the gift I was given was designing things and the ability to make things with my hands. And a lot of people don’t have that. But that was the gift I was given. It wasn’t the gift I wanted, but it was the gift I was given.
On finding a path – Lying to yourself is called “rationalization”
I’m very thankful for that gift, but that still doesn’t mean that I wouldn't love to be a musician, but I’m not. I can’t be and, in fact, there are people out who are unsuccessful and miserable in their lives because they continue to lie to themselves. You know, in English, there is even a word for lying to yourself, and it’s called “rationalization”. And we all do it every day. It’s a human thing to do, but it’s a bad thing most times. So that day in 1964 when I looked in the mirror and said okay what are you going to do? I knew I wasn’t good enough to be a star, so I changed directions. I did a little inventory and I figured out what I was good at, and that’s what I’ve been doing since 1964, which is 50 years.
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Hartley Peavey at NAMM 2014 - on the topic of business
The challenges encountered - Business is like raising a baby gorilla
I use the gift that I was given, it wasn’t what I wanted, but it was what I got. And you know, given the same thing, I would do it all over again. However, I like to use analogies and I love the company, but it doesn’t give me time. The analogy I use is like raising a baby gorilla. When it’s small, you can play with it and set it aside. But when it grows up, it jerks you where it wants you to go. And I’ve been all over the world, but I’ve never seen any of it. All I see are exhibit halls, and distributor showrooms or offices and maybe a dealer or two. And people say “well, have you been here, have you been here”, “yes”, well did you see this, did you see that? “Well, no”, “well, I thought you went”, “Well, yes I did, but I saw our distributor. And we distribute by the way of 136 companies…but it’s been a very fun ride every day.
A bit of reflection - If I die today, I made a difference
I would love to say that I planned it. But it evolved. We have made so many changes that have literally changed the industry. For example, we were the first company ever to make guitars with computer controlled machines. Why? Because that was the best way to do it. We changed professional audio. In 1993, we were the first company to introduce a digital audio networking system, which totally changed professional sound systems. It can go to a theme park, a concert, casino, any kind of venue. You see digital sound systems. We did it in 1993, with a product called “medium matrix”. And people said, why would a company like Peavey do medium matrix, and my answer is “why not?” The beautiful thing about learning more and more is that you can do more. Unfortunately, a lot of people, want to pigeonhole. Well I make guitars. I had people say “you can’t possibly be serious about professional audio; you’re in the music business”. And I say, well why does that matter? Do you ever use a Yamaha digital console? “Well I don’t want to upset you, but there’s a rumor they make pianos and piccolos. “ We’re in the music business, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making guitars, especially the way we do it, we do it a different way. As human beings the best we can ever hope to do is to make a difference. Hopefully, for the better. If I die today, this day right now, I made a difference in a lot of people lives. A lot of people have jobs that wouldn’t have had them without me. A lot of musicians can play better music because of me and yes, I have made a difference, and that feels good.
What the future will bring -
And I want to continue to do that and although I will probably retire in the next couple of years, I will never quit, because I enjoy the creative part of what I do. What I hate is all the crap that we get into doing business, especially with the government of the United States. It makes more laws, more laws, more laws…and like radiation that is also kindled. But the people making the laws don’t have any idea about how to do business, which is insane. That’s the way it is. People ask me what I do with the company. Did you ever taken high school chemistry? Do you know what a catalyst is? A catalyst is a chemical compound that enhances or speeds up a reaction without itself being changed. That’s what I do. Cause I’m the same person. At my company, you don’t see coats and ties, everyone is on a first name basis, even our telephone directory – we have 100’s of telephones. If you don’t know somebody’s first name, you can’t find them in the phone directory. Cause we have no Mister’s or Peaveys. They call me Hartley, or maybe a few other names that I can’t repeat, but it’s a different kind of company. In fact, as we’re an odd combination of old fashioned business and high technology. And the great thing is that I have people that are growing, but selfishly I get to grow every day.
