Six String & An Attitude: Reverend Guitars’ Ken Haas

Ken Haas

Since Reverend Guitars’ launch in 1997, the company – founded by celebrated luthier and amp tech Joe Naylor – has gained a devoted following for its distinctive instruments that match innovative tech and construction methods with retro-inspired designs, superior playability, and within-reach prices.

Current CEO and COO, respectively, Ken and Penny Haas purchased the company in 2010 and in the subsequent years, the brand has flourished, attracting a number of high-profile guitarists. With instruments still designed by Naylor – who also serves as technical advisor and whose pickup company, Railhammer Pickups, was absorbed by Reverend in 2017 – the buzz about these guitars continues to grow. We recently spoke with Ken about what makes Toledo, Ohio-based Reverend Guitars unique.

Joe Naylor, Penny Haas, and Ken Haas

I’ve noticed how pretty much everybody at Reverend is not only an active, performing musician, but really active. Was that by design or just pure chance?

Over the last 10 years since Penny and I took over the helm, we have hired a lot of our friends or a lot of our friends’ friends. As the company grew, people in our “musician circle” had certain skillsets and then became available. As an example, my warehouse manager is Chris Zielinski and he’s the bass player in one of my many bands at the moment. We actually played at Winter NAMM in 2014 – right in the lobby, dude. Chris was a warehouse manager for a pharmaceutical company that left our city and went to Chicago, so all of the sudden he was unemployed and we gave him the job and having him here really helped us grow, as well. It’s been that way with just about everybody.

That’s awesome. I’m sure it also makes for a fun workplace.

It’s special and I know it. You know what I mean?

Unlike some transitions of ownership or power, everything is copacetic between you and Joe Naylor.

Joe and I were really good friends starting in the late ‘90s. I was playing his guitars in my bands and we developed this really good friendship. One of Joe’s trepidations about hiring me full-time was he didn’t want to ruin our friendship by having me work for him – and it didn’t! Then it got to the point where I was doing enough for him that he was like, “ We have to make this official.” Which was great for me because I was in my 30s and I hated the career path that I was on.

Perfect timing.

I think the transition of company ownership was made smooth by the fact that we had already, sort of, done that when I came to work at Reverend. And he’s not in the building every day, so it’s not like I’m “his boss” hovering over him or anything like that. I view Joe as an independent contractor who I have an exclusive arrangement with to design guitars for me. Basically, I’m a bookkeeper – I just keep the books for really cool shit, you know? [laughs] And I have no problems doing dealer in-store appearances and doing, you know, the videos with any of our artists and stuff like that. And I can play well enough to hang with those guys a little bit without being too cocky.

Joe Naylor, Jeff Schroeder from Smashing Pumpkins and Ken Haas

Related: I wanted to talk about what an amazing endorsing artist roster you have. I mean – Ron Asheton, Bob from Fu Manchu, Mike Watt – you’re cherry-picking my favorite bands.

Yeah, I cherry-pick my favorite bands.

It would be easy for any of those guys to hook up with one of the well-known “legacy brands” and the fact that they’re casting their lot with Reverend is meaningful.

Thank you. You know, all those relationships have developed organically, as well, which is what makes them special.

How did the partnership with Billy Corgan come about?

A very good friend of Naylor and I’s little sister was working for Billy Corgan’s management in the late ‘90s and introduced Joe to him and Joe made him a couple of custom guitars years ago. And then when Billy’s [endorsement deal] with Fender was coming to a close, he reached out to us and said, “Hey, if you guys are interested in developing a guitar with me, I’d be into that.” And, of course we’re interested!

I think the reason why we’re able to keep a Bob Balch or we’re able to keep a Reeves [Gabrels] or a Billy is, when we’re talking about doing a signature Reverend is not, “Oh, cool, man. Yeah, we’ll just put your name on this Double Agent.” That’s not what it’s about. Joe works with the artists to make them the exact guitar that they wanna use live for their purpose and then we manufacture it exactly to the artist’s specs. So if you really like The Cure and you really like the tone that Reeves Gabrels gets with his Spacehawks, the Spacehawk that we sell is set up exactly as what he’s playing onstage.

A lot of guitar stores and suppliers have been reporting that, as much as this past year-plus sucked in virtually every respect, guitar sales are, for some, through the roof. What’s been your experience?

Biggest year we’ve ever had. Coming out of last spring and going into summer through right now, it’s just been nonstop.

Wow.

I think it has a lot to do with people having a lot of time on their hands, sitting around and goofing off on Reverb or elsewhere. But, also, people are podcasting like mad and people are playing, recording videos of their playing, and then people are practicing and getting better and stepping up into the next level of guitar. We’re squarely a mid-level instrument and so people are stepping up into us from their beginner guitars because they see their heroes are using our stuff or whatever else. That factors in.

I also do a weekly YouTube show from here, from Reverend, at 11:00 on Fridays on YouTube and Facebook, where I sit down with a piece of inventory people can ask me questions and we’ll talk about stuff. It usually ends up going longer than it should because, in case you haven’t noticed, you can ask me a question and I’ll talk for a really long time.

Ha. No, that’s good to know. I’ll check one of those out.

Yeah, it’s a fun thing to do. And, you know, it makes me feel like I’m a little connected and I miss that connection. I got into this business because of the NAMM Show. When Joe took me to my first NAMM Show, which it was summer of ‘99 in Nashville at the old center, the first time I walked in and stood in that area upstairs and looked down over the main floor and looked at all the stuff, the very first thought I had was, “I’m doing the right thing with my life.”

My favorite thing is when we go to NAMM or a public guitar show and some guy walks up to the booth and goes, “Man, I’ve been playing guitars for 30 years. I’ve never even heard of you guys. Tell me what you guys do.” And I’m like, “Hell yeah.” Because, after 22 years in this business, there’s still room to grow. We haven’t come anywhere near close to saturating this market yet.

That dovetails nicely into my next question. What are your expectations for the coming months – specifically for Reverend, but also for the whole MI industry as a collective?

I don’t know. I’d love to see this industry come back at Summer NAMM in Nashville. I mean, can you imagine if after being locked down for a year-and-a-half, we all finally get together in Nashville?

Absolute insanity.

It’ll be so fun.

Does Reverend have any upcoming product introductions or news you want to share with our readers?

Oh, yeah. We have some major signature artist stuff planned for 2021. Right at the top of the year, we’re launching a new model with Greg Koch that is featuring Fishman Fluence P90 pickups. Well, we went to Fishman, and Joe and Greg voiced the pickups with Fishman together because Greg loves the sound of Naylor’s P90s, so these are the first Fluence P90 style pickups and they’re gonna be available in Greg’s signature – “Gristle 90,” I think we’re calling it.

One final question: If you were to describe the Reverend aesthetic, how would you put it?

It’s vintage/retro styling that people are comfortable with married with modern innovations and modern quality in building – the two things coexisting together in something that looks familiar. That’s the magic that Joe’s able to capture.