Arteconciencias: Fender CEO Andy Mooney: “There are still heaps of virtuoso players, but there are fewer guitar gods now”

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October 24, 2022

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Editor's Note

"There are fewer guitar gods now"

It's fair to say that few people out there today have as much of a finger on the pulse of the wide world of guitar as the CEOs of the industry's largest companies.

To that end, Fender CEO Andy Mooney recently offered his thoughts on the current trajectory of the guitar in an interview with Fortune, saying that while he doesn't think there are currently as many guitar gods as there have been in decades past, that's not necessarily a bad thing for the future of the instrument.

“At the dawn of the electric guitar, a lot of the growth was from people who wanted to be guitar heroes or virtuoso players like Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, or Jimi Hendrix,” he said in the interview. “There are still heaps of virtuoso players, but there are fewer guitar gods now. More people use guitars onstage, in the studio, and in other genres as compositional, creating textures.”

As Mooney further outlines in the discussion, the business is changing, and not just because of the aforementioned shift in musical tastes. The way people buy guitars – not just the way they play and approach them – has shifted, too.

None of this, though, means that our beloved instrument is dying.

Jackson Maxwell – Associate Editor, guitarworld.com

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