FRESH CREAM

Another UK-made guitar brand is always welcome, but rarely are they conceived by a meeting of great minds that includes a grizzled USA rock icon and a ‘mad scientist’ pickup maker from Norway…

- Dave Burrluck

When we first heard rumblings of this project – the birth of a new guitar company – our interest was piqued, not least because of the names involved: Relish, PJD Guitars, Cream T pickups and the legendary Billy F Gibbons. This could be interesting!

The seed of the idea had actually started with the innovative and very different designs of the Swiss-based guitar company Relish. Tim Lobley, owner of Sound Effects in Ormskirk, takes us back: “I’m quite a fan of Relish’s pickup-swapping system, but, as a retailer, had some reservations about the guitar they were using as a ‘host’ for this new technology. On a personal level, I like the design, and I own one, but they just don’t sell in big numbers.

“In late 2020, I was talking to Silvan Kueng, the CEO and co-founder of Relish,” Tim continues. “He explained that the most likely next step for Relish was to try to get guitar makers to use the pickup swapping technology in their own guitars. I offered to ask around with some builders I knew to see if there was any interest. One of those conversations was with Leigh Dovey of PJD Guitars here in the UK, but he didn’t think it fitted in with the strategy of their brand.

“I’ve got to know PJD well and really admire their work; I think Leigh is a real rising star in the UK. The conversation then quite quickly turned to the idea of using their production facility to build a guitar for me with the Relish pickup swapping in.”