Tom's involvement with Kramer

[Janine Doubly]

Tom, I just got finished watching an old Fishbone video where Kendall and Norwood are playing a Kramer guitar and bass respectively. Also, just finished reading the Elliot Easton article in Vintage Guitar where he describes the Kramer guitars he and you designed. I know the Fishbone guys were avid fans of your guitars. What's the history on these possible Kramer/Tom instruments?

[picnic]

My picnic grounds hosted a couple of Kramer company picnics back in the 80's. Tom, did I miss you at them?

[tom]

no picnics for me. i got involved when ripley was doing stuff with evh. they had me make a new neck for eds main guitar, then asked me to help with kramers neck production problems. that's a long story in itself. it morphed into doing some of their artists guitars. i did a lot with elliott, some with vivian, ed, sammy and others of the day. i almost took a job with them which would have moved me to the east coast. dodged a bullet on that one.

[Janine Doubly]

Glad to see you missed that bullet! I can't imagine the issues involved with solving Kramer's problems. Yikes!!! Did you build the Fishbone kids' stuff?

[tom]

not the kramers. didn't meet them till they were playing andersons.

[Benny]

Here are two of EVH's guitars that we worked on: A Kramer/Ripley that is all Tom, and a new TA neck for the Schecter/Charvel "Frankenstrat." We painted that one (Schwinn bicycle paint and all) and put a gold Kramer logo on it so it wouldn't be so blatantly "theirs." I'll check the archive for some photos of Elliot's guitars.

[bruce]

Benny, I bet that was the most fun you ever had painting a headstock.