INTERVIEW WITH SHANE NICHOLAS //
Director of Product Development – Amplifiers, Fender
By Doug Doppler
[WM] Shane, what exactly do you on an
annual, weekly, and daily basis?
[Shane Nicholas] On an annual basis, I
manage the product portfolio and product
life cycle of guitar-based amplifiers, I’ve been
doing that for a long time. Product life cycle
management is everything from cradle to grave,
when are we going to bring a product to market,
and when do we eventually realize that it’s time
to do something else, that’s product life cycle.
The simple thing is that I’ve been Fenders amp
guy for a long time. I’ll train the sales people,
I’ll do an interview with the media, whatever it
takes to tell people that Fender amps are great,
always have been and always will be.
Shane Nicholas, Director of Product Development – Amplifiers
[WM] The story of this ’62 Princeton Chris
Stapleton Edition is a first in a number of
ways. Not only was this the first reissue of a
’62 Princeton, but Chris Stapleton is the first
Country artist you’ve done a signature amp for.
Even perhaps even more interesting is the fact
that like Chris’ amp, the reissue features a 12”
speaker like in Chris’ amp, and not a 10” like
the original ’62 Princeton. I also understand
that the development process for this amp took
a year and a half. Can you walk us through that
process?
[Shane] You did hit on an interesting point,
when Leo Fender started the company all of
the artists were country players. So, it certainly
is not deliberate that we’ve waited this long to
do a signature amp with a country guy, but it
just so happened. Clapton came around at one
point, George Benson came around at one
point, and so on. We like it to be very organic so
that when we endorse an amp with somebody
it’s not like we rubber-stamp their name on it,
it’s that there’s a story behind it. That it’s, “I
had an old amp and I wanted to recreate it”
or, “I have a bunch of amps and I’m looking
May 2019
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