Bangalore-based custom-guitar-maker Hemanth Kumar, 38, better known to guitar players in Bangalore as Bobby Guitarman, can tweak guitars, music and destiny, all in a blink of an eye. As a child, he made his own guitar in a musical rebellion of sorts. Today, he makes guitars, including customised fretless beauties for some well known musicians. He knows the odds of making music in a classic rock band that sings in Hindi. He knows the odds of survival on the music scene since his Clockwork Orange days, a band in the 1990s. Bobby, is now diversifying into guitar essentials, like stage amplifiers and tube amps. He says, “Guitar customisation is picking up. People are looking at options of customising for stage and personal sound characters. Everyone wants to be different in the way they sound.”
This is Bobby’s 15th year in the business and he is still doing what he loves. He has a label named Edge which he started in 2002. “I needed a guitar in my high school days. I wanted to start a band, but for some reason, my father wouldn’t let me, so I constructed a guitar to keep me going with music,” says Bobby. “I was never really keen on starting a label, but my friends made me think about it,” he adds. His friends even helped him in doing the branding for his guitars. “Today, taking my guitars to other levels is much easier.”
In April 2010, American bass player, composer Victor Wooten played one of his products at a guitar clinic in Bangalore, in April 2010. With clients like Gaurav Vaz of city-based folk rock band Raghu Dixit Project, Swarathma and the guitar-player and singer Benny Dayal using his guitars, Bobby has his hands full. Warren Mendonsa of Blackstratblues and Dhruv Ghanekar are a couple of his favourite guitarists.
Bobby studied tool and die making from Government Tool Room & Training Centre, Bangalore, is self taught and has no formal training in making guitars. According to Bobby, picking a custom guitar always has its pros. “You have the freedom of fitting pieces according to your whims and fancies, and the satisfaction is 100 per cent. You get to choose a shape that you identify with. Since the wood is important in determining factors like resonance and sustain, you get to select that as well.”
There is the freedom to choose the spares, like the pickups, the bridge, the pots, the machine head and the finish. Bobby adds, “The customers contribute towards the construction of the guitar—by giving an idea or a concept. All these combinations are hard to find in a factory-finished guitar. What are the challenges in guitar making? “Every guitar is equally challenging. I enjoy making something different with every order. I tend to get creative with the new age guitars,” Bobby adds. When he is not busy making guitars, Bobby is out playing or recording with his band Chai On The Rocks at his home studio. Since the very beginning, I have only used the guitars that I have made.” The guitars he likes other than the Edge ones are Fender — for “its bluesy tone”, Gibson — “for its fat sound” and Ernie Ball Music Man “for its versatility.”