Why Dolphins?
It’s a good question. Especially as our workshop is over 400km from the sea. But my connection to dolphins has grown right alongside my career as a guitar builder, and I think they’re an even more fitting symbol now than when I first had the idea over 25 years ago.
The dolphin obsession began around 1991 and lasted until…well, we’re still in it. It didn’t come from me originally but from my wife, Ingrid. When we were dating she was crazy about them, and this soon spread to myself. In fact, it was so contagious that it took over our lives in a way. Walking into our apartment was like entering a kind of dolphin shrine. Everything had dolphins on it; from bottle openers to wall art, it was hard to turn your head without seeing them.
In ’92 we’d flown to the Florida Quays and visited a dolphin research centre. Swimming with them is an incredible experience, but watching them interact with people was perhaps more inspiring. They showed an understanding of humans and behaviour that Ingrid and I found fascinating, staying away from those who were disinterested or bad-tempered, and responding differently to adults and children. There was one in particular that kept swimming past and staring at me as I stood by the water, like it was sizing me up, wondering what I was about. The sense of intelligence and connection was clear.
So, when it came to deciding on some kind of symbol for my guitars, in the midst of this obsession, it just felt natural that it be a dolphin.
Funnily enough, the first dolphin inlay was not on a Dolphin model, but on a semi-hollow, Tele-style guitar. It was…not my best work. Let’s put it that way. But I developed the idea from there, and in doing so took more and more inspiration from nature. The ocean-like, blue, quilted maple top with the dolphin inlays came together from this, and it was a bit like a flagship model for a time.
The guitars and this love of nature continued informing each other, and today they’re more strongly connected than ever. We’ve taken every opportunity to observe dolphins, even seeing them swim next to our sons as they surfed. Each year at NAMM, we head down to Huntington Beach and watch them. Through the guitars, we’ve now become connected with people in the world of marine biology.
This same fascination led to the creation of the Orca and, most recently, our Blue Whale series. Limited to a run of 25, the series celebrates this beautiful, endangered animal, with all profits going to the conservation efforts of researcher Richard Seers’ Mingan Island Cetacean Study. The setup for the project involved travelling to the Azores to observe blue whales, which was something else entirely; nothing quite prepares you for experiencing such animals up-close and in the wild.
Now I’m looking ahead to what our next series might be, and how it could also give something back. One of the coolest orders for custom inlays that we ever received was for great white sharks, with a pod of seals at the first fret. The great white is another incredible creature that’s also vulnerable – and one that’s severely misunderstood. That could be a very worthwhile thing to showcase. Plus, it makes for a badass inlay.
So my answer to ‘Why dolphins?’ has changed a little since the beginning. Or at least got longer. At first, I put something out there because it was significant to me – and I also thought it looked good. But putting the dolphins on a guitar intertwined the passion for building with a love for nature so that, now, the guitars promote and support the conservation of the animals, just as the animals inspire the guitars. I guess these days, I’d say that the dolphins are a symbol of this little personal story, and a sign of everything we’re wanting to achieve with our guitars.
But maybe most importantly, they’re something that people and players notice, comment on, request and enjoy. It doesn’t really matter why. Maybe someone has a similar level of fascination with animals; maybe they just like dolphins; maybe they just like the way the inlay looks. Whatever the reason, the fact that it can be significant for a bunch of other people too – well, that’s pretty damn cool.
– Nik
