“Al Di Meola would call Yamaha and other companies, and say, ‘I think you need to pay attention to what’s going on here’”: Paul Reed Smith remembers his attempts to build guitars for other brands before starting his own company

Paul Reed Smith has opened up on the origins of PRS Guitars, admitting that initially, he wanted to build for other companies, rather than have his own business.

In a new conversation with Zak Kuhn, Smith asks his interviewer to “come out swinging,” and so Kuhn obliges. He hit the matter straight on: is it true he pitched a guitar to Kramer and that, originally, he was going to sell the PRS guitars to other manufacturers?

“That was the idea,” Smith nods. “And you’ve got to remember, at that time, Kramer was one of the largest guitar companies in the world, and the Floyd Rose tremolo was their thing. So, I had to make a prototype that they would consider, with a Floyd on it.”

At the height of its powers, Kramer was the king of the shred scene, thanks to its association with Eddie Van Halen. Smith felt he’d be better working with established manufacturers rather than going solo.

“I went to Ovation, I went to Yamaha, I went to almost everybody and said, ‘Do you want to do this?’” he continues. “And one guy says to me, ‘I like the locking tuners, you'll do well with that.’ I said, ‘That's not what I'm after!’ And so we ended up having to do it ourselves.”

Smith has always been a self-made man. In his formative years, he’d build a guitar by hand, and hang around arenas, waiting for his chance to give his electric guitar the hard sell to a big-name player. Carlos Santana and Al Di Meola were two of his first customers. That only bolstered his confidence.

“I was kind of stunned,” he says of his series of manufacturer rejections. “I thought we had a good thing. I had Carlos Santana, Al Di Meola, and Howard Leese as endorsers. Of all things, Al Di Meola was trying to help me. He would call Yamaha, or this company, or that company, and say, ‘I think you need to pay attention to what's going on here.’”

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But every avenue turned out to be a dead end.

“I didn't get accepted by Yamaha and Kramer; the offers were either non-existent or weak,” he explains. If I was going to make enough money to put my kids into college, I had to make a living. Carlos Santana and Al Di Meola playing my guitars was a big deal; I thought my ideas were legitimate.

“I remember, Walter Cronkite of all people. He was in my shop, and I was trying to get him to invest. And he goes, ‘I don't know. I just sold a guitar company.’ And I looked at him, and I realized that he was on the CBS board, and he had just sold Fender. I was like, ‘Well, I guess I can't ask him again.’”

Despite his best intentions and ever-fierce determination, Smith was forced to go solo, and 40 years on, PRS is killing it. John Mayer’s Silver Sky is one of the most popular signature guitars built in recent years, he’s prized Herman Li from Ibanez, and is dropping some serious sub–$1K guitars. Kramer, Fender, and Yamaha, meanwhile, are left to eat their hats.

Elsewhere, in a new interview with Guitar World, Smith has revealed that the firm's affordable SE line nearly went extinct. It was saved from the brink by one wonderful quirk.