MARK DRONGE INTERVIEW
continued from page 38
[CG] Do you have any vintage Guild guitars?
Mark: Yes, I have some right here in the closet
and hanging on the walls. I have the first Guild
guitar ever made, an X-300 that I bought from
Jay Pilzer, the guy who owns New Hope Guitar
Traders. He offered it to me, I made him a
counter offer and he took it. It’s serial number
0001, a blonde archtop with one Franz pickup
at the neck. Those Franz pickups were terrible.
When we were in Hoboken, our factory was
right around the corner from Stevens Institute
of Technology (writer’s note: now called New
Jersey Institute of Technology). It only occurred
to me years later that we should have taken
those pickups over there for them to improve.
[CG] Let’s discuss DR Strings. How did the
company come about?
Mark: DR was really my father’s idea. It was
always his vision to make strings especially for
Guild guitars, and that dream stuck with me.
I started DR in 1988-89 and we have always
marketed ourselves as being the company
that makes handmade strings. I think you can
tell the difference between a handmade string
and one wound on a computerized machine.
non-string products coming soon that I can’t
We believe we are the most innovative string
discuss right now, but I will tell you that we have
company out there at the moment. We were
no plan to market guitars. We have a patent on
the first to offer Neon brand colored strings
one of these new products.
and the DDT Drop-Down strings especially
made for dropped tunings. We make a true
We have a great crew here at DR. Many of our
vintage string, and we have a high performance
employees are players. My dad always said,
patented coating called K3, which makes our
“Never make a cheap product, because there’s
strings extremely stable and won’t affect the
always a market for quality.”
tone. We are the only company offering strings
with a hard coating that we call Lizard Skin.
[CG] Finally Mark, do you have any thoughts
on the new Guild guitars made by Cordoba?
Our latest string is called Veritas Electrics, with
40
a round core. It’s a long lasting string with no
Mark: I think they are terrific people and
coating on the outside wrap wire. It’s a big
they make a great product. I wish them all
deal for us. I can tell you that we have two new
the best.
Nov Dec 2016
CollectibleGuitar.com