Richard is star struck, having listened to Bushwhacker's since way back when he used to get up really early to come in to work before musicians would wake up; he grew up in the San Joaquin Vally & moved to Santa Cruz when he was 14-15-16 taking a page out of Jack Kerouac; he needed to be close enough to an urban area, but didn't want to live in one, so he & his art director wife settled in Santa Cruz, starting Santa Cruz Guitar Company (SCGC) in 1976; Brenda came here in 2010 to attend U.C. Santa Cruz; the name Santa Cruz evokes unconditional love & spirit - the logo used a floral design, with the initials sylisticly (Richard cut 4,000 out by hand!); they've sold 20,000 guitars; the first guitar had a lot of innovations, as Richard came from a violin tradition, and was a response to the Dreadnought guitar everyone was playing at that time; wood? Richard was part of a 3 person partnership, & they operated by consensus; Richard loved mahogany, but they landed on Koa; they made the Tony Rice signature model thanks to an introduction by Darrel Anger; SCGC is known for innovation, but they are also sustainable & responsible; as a teen, Richard played guitar to impress girls (it worked), &, while waiting for a girl, he realized, "Somebody makes these!"; he took a guitar apart; his mom, a "rock star reference librarian" looked for books on how to build a guitar & couldn't find any on 6-string guitars, but there were lots of boooks on violins; violins are built for serious sound, & Richard brought this sensibility to guitars; what truly makes Richard happy is making others happy; all SCGC guitars are custom built - it takes 4-6 months to build a guitar, with teamwork amont the 17 builders; they build 400+ guitars a year; co-founders & partners are Will Davis & Bruce Ross; big names play a Santa Cruz Guitar (Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, David Crosby) but Richard shouts out to Jose Rojas, who has 400,000 followers, and inspires in the clean water & nutrition space, and prominently features his Santa Cruz Guitar.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!