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“I handed him the guitar at the end saying, ‘You can keep that!’ And the next day it had millions of views”: Yungblud explains why he’s been giving away his new Epiphone signature models at shows
In a new interview with Total Guitar, Yungblud has explained his reasoning behind the guitar giveaways and how the idea came about serendipitously.
“We’d been sent some cool prototypes to tour with. I wanted to try them out and switch between my main ’60s Gibson and the Epiphones. I started to mix and match on stage. We were headlining a festival in Prague and I asked the crowd, ‘Does anyone want to come up and play this next song with us? Does anyone actually know how to play it?’”
“Everyone went a bit mad and it was crazy looking at 60,000 people screaming, ‘Yeah!’ I remember looking out and a mosh pit opened up. There was one kid in the middle screaming, ‘Me!’ I got him up, his name was Simon, and it was like we’d been playing with him our entire lives.”
He continues, “I handed him the guitar at the end saying, ‘You can keep that!’ And the next day it had millions of views.”
The unexpected viral hit led Yungblud to call the factory to inform them that they needed a “load more” guitars, as he planned to give them out to his fans.
While it was undoubtedly a great way to promote his upcoming model, Yungblud asserts he hunkered down on the idea mainly because he wanted to inspire his fans to pick up the guitar.
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“After the gigs, I would go to the barrier when the house lights come on to hang out with the kids – that’s what I’ve done since we started – and people will tell me they’re starting a band. That will lead to me calling my tech over to bring them a guitar.”
Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology and how it is shaping the future of the music industry, and has a special interest in shining a spotlight on traditionally underrepresented artists and global guitar sounds. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Auf der Maur, Yvette Young, Danielle Haim, Fanny, and Karan Katiyar from Bloodywood, among others. When she's not writing, you'll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her Anglo-Maltese, art-rock band ĠENN.
