The ESP Guitar Company

If you’ve never been to Nashville, TN, you might not be aware of how cool it really is. We’re not talking about the temperature, of course; it’s always a bit of a shock to our spoiled systems when we find ourselves in the South during the midst of summertime, with a level of humidity that makes us feel like we’re swimming through the air.

Summer humidity aside, Nashville is, in a word, awesome. No matter what kind of music you like, you’re bound to find examples of the best songwriters and live performers all over this town. Much more than just the Mecca of country music, Nashville has something for every music lover, from metal to classical, jazz to gospel. This makes it the perfect location for the Summer NAMM Show, with thousands of visitors who know just about everything there is to know about guitars. ESP, along with Takamine Guitars (our distribution partner in the USA), had a booth that was packed full of people who were excited to see what we had to offer.

Guitar-shaped pool? Yeah, we're back in Nashville again.

Welcome to Bill Kelliher of Mastodon
Not long before the show started, news got out about one of our newest and most exciting artists to choose ESP: Bill Kelliher of Mastodon. As you’d imagine, with Summer NAMM being the first time anyone could see Bill’s new LTD BK-600 Signature Series guitar in person, there were quite a few people who came by specifically to check out this full-thickness traditional Eclipse model with the killer Military Green Satin Sunburst finish.

This Mastodon fan was rather happy to be one of the first people on Earth -- other than Bill Kelliher himself -- to get touchy-feely with the LTD BK-600.

Master of Puppets 30th Anniversary Limited-Edition 

Another big draw at the ESP booth was a preview of the upcoming limited-edition LTD “Master of Puppets” guitar. It was created to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the seminal Metallica album, with the iconic cover art used as the guitar’s graphic finish.

Here's ESP's national sales manager Mike Brinker next to Ray Burton, the father of legendary original Metallica bass player Cliff Burton, holding the limited-edition commemorative Master of Puppets guitar. We were honored to have Mr. Burton come by to check out this guitar!

Born in the USA
Our ESP USA Series are guitars that are built here in the USA, at a production facility near our HQ in North Hollywood, CA. We had a beautiful new limited-edition ESP USA guitar at our Summer NAMM booth with the USA Eclipse Violet Shadow. More than just a limited-edition USA-made Eclipse with an amazing finish over a flamed maple top, this guitar offers super high-class features like masked binding, a bone nut, Sperzel locking tuners, Tonepros locking TOM bridge and tailpiece, and a Seymour Duncan APH-1 pickup set, with the resulting warm, sustain-packed tone that is a hallmark of the Alnico-II Pro humbucker.

Oh myyyyyy. The ESP USA Eclipse Violet Shadow. We're only building 15 of these, so get it while you can.

Hanging Out with ESP Pals
As usual, we were fortunate to have some great ESP players who either had come into town for the show, or who live in Nashville year around. Summer NAMM is different than its winter counterpart; it’s a smaller show, and we don’t put up nearly as an elaborate booth as we do in Anaheim each January. But there’s an upside to this as well. We can spend more time with each visitor to our booth, and we don’t have to spend the entire show screaming to be heard from a few feet away, which is kind of nice for everyone.

In any case, we want to say thanks to everyone who came by and hung out with us, or picked up a guitar or bass in our booth and jammed!

Random guy rocking an LTD Xtone, we salute you.

Bass legend Rocco Prestia performed at a Summer NAMM booth using the RB Series bass that he helped design.