If you're looking for high-end low-end, one
of the most impressive companies we've dealt with recently has to be CHOWNY BASS. When GET
READY TO ROLL!'s resident odd-job-man was looking for yet another bass
guitar to clutter up his girlfriend's living room, he did a fair bit of research
and landed on a model that ticked all his boxes. Add that to the excellent
customer service, the deal was soon sealed, and before you could say "all cows
eat grass" he was sprawled out on her sofa, pretending to be Mark King and
forgetting he'd even got a girlfriend. So while he was busy noodling, she decided
to chat to STEPHEN CHOWN about the
CHOWNY range of basses.
• • • •
•
Hello Stephen - firstly, please talk us through the
timeline of Chowny, and what you do there.
Hello! I'm Stephen Chown, the founder and director of
Chowny, which I modestly named after myself. To be more precise the company
shares the name with my Xbox Live gamertag! I'm a designer, social media manager,
production manager... in fact I do pretty much every job other than luthier
duties or graphic design work. If only I'd known that founding my own guitar
company would involve quite so much time spent carrying boxes... but it's worth
it!
I started
with the first model (the CHB-1) in February 2015. I knew that as a small
start-up I was never going to compete with Fender or similar companies making
Jazz basses for instance, just due to their advantages in economy of scale, so I
decided to start with something that was a bit more niche. It was a matter of
looking at everything that was being sold, and trying to find somewhere in the
market that was being underserved. Ultimately I settled on a short scale
semi-hollow bass.
Actual work began a bit earlier in 2014 when I designed the bass and commissioned
samples from various factories with very mixed results. When I finally got a bass
and was happy with it in terms of quality and price - both of which I wanted to
push as far as I could - I had some samples made.
So I had a product, a name and a factory willing to work with a startup.
Originally the plan was to launch on Kickstarter, but by that point there was
enough social media following that it was worth just inviting pre-orders and
using the profit from that first batch to cover all the setup costs and invest in
initial stock. That was the start of Chowny and we've been growing steadily
since.
What prompted you to focus on selling bass guitars - are
you a bassplayer yourself?
Bassplaying was a bit of a midlife crisis for me. I was
turning 40 and thought I needed to learn to play an instrument before then. I
went from learning to play to running my own bass guitar company very quickly.
I'm a passable bass player at best - I never get enough time to practice. But I
try and surround myself with great players and I really enjoy working together
with them to design and fine tune the range.
I've been very fortunate to join forces with a few colleagues that I met through
making basses. Scott Whitley who designed the SWB-1 Bass originally approached me
to have his basses made, and when he moved from playing the bass with the Animals
to Big Country, he asked if'd I'd take over production. Also David Konig from
Retrovibe has a lot of experience designing basses. We got together because we
were using the same production facilities and earlier this year we took over
manufacturing these too. Retrovibe have stayed on as an in-house design
consultancy helping to produce some new basses.
What would your customers say
are the most important features to take into account when choosing a bass - e.g.
neck, pickups, wood, weight, price, the country it's made in, after-sales
service, etc?
Is this an attempt to lure me into the tonewood debate? It
won't work! I think it's important to make something that looks great and sounds
great. Sure the first thing that attracts people is the fact that they look cool,
but if you can't back that up with a great tone it's a wasted effort. An enormous
amount of research goes into choosing the right wood and parts for the
basses.
Working with our production facilities we also have to try and be practical - for
instance choosing wood that grows in the regions that our basses are made. This
makes them more affordable, and more sustainable. Finally we squeeze the
production costs as much as we can without sacrificing what the bass looks and
feels like.
I also like to think that we are part of a bass player community - and it's a
tightly knit one. This means being absolutely committed to making sure that
everybody who buys a bass either loves it - or gets their money back. We try to
follow this approach to after sales as much as we can. It keeps us very
busy.
Your basses get very good
reviews, including this
one at Bass Guitar Magazine. How do you ensure quality control and set-up for
the basses you send out?
Every bass that comes in from the factory goes through our
workshop. We're still a small company and have limited resources, so this means
working with a great local luthier who sets up every bass that goes out. We check
each bass for relief, adjust the truss rod cover and action height, file or raise
the nut if necessary, check the electronics and set the intonation and tuning.
This means, unless it was knocked around in transit, your bass should play pretty
well right out the box.
What bass
strings do you prefer, and which strings are sent out with Chowny
basses?
D'Addario strings all the way! They are fantastic strings
and a great company to work with. We either fit D'addario EXL170 or EXL170BT
strings depending on the bass. The other advantage is the strings are colour
coded, which as far as I know is unique to D'Addario, so anybody looking a photo
of our bass would be able to easily see they don't have cheap strings
on.
What changes have you seen regarding how people buy
basses? Do more people buy direct these days, just from seeing the tech-specs
online, or do people prefer to try them out at a dealership first? What's the
trend?
Chowny sells directly and also through retailers (only in
the UK at the moment). There is a scheme in place to ensure that direct sales
don't negatively impact the bricks and mortar stores that stock our stuff. As for
trends in buying - some people like to play a bass first and some people will buy
based on specs, photos and online videos. I think it depends largely on age with
older and more experienced players being more cautious.
Who are your own favourite bass players, and
what is it that makes them stand out?
Geddy Lee from Rush - I've been a huge fan of Rush for
many years. Also Pino Paladino (especially with the John Mayer trio), Sting (I
wish I could sing and play bass at the same time), Flea, John Entwistle, Tim
Commerford... I could make a very long list. I also like bassists who create easy
(for me) bass lines that are interesting to play - Tim Nordwind from OK Go or
Johnny Colt from the Black Crowes for instance.
At Chowny
we work with gigging musicians such as Scott Whitley from Big Country, and we
also work a lot with bassists from Youtube. We've had our basses played by
Davie504, Rob Scallon and Dmitry Lisenko, and closely work with new bassists like
Danny Sapko.
Which one bass in the Chowny range do you like best - and
why?
My favourite bass in the range is always going to be the
CHB-1. It was the first one I designed, and far more successful than I
anticipated. I think I was lucky and caught a rise in semi-hollow bass
popularity. I owe the foundation of the whole company to it. It also has a lovely
short scale neck that's easy to play with my stubby fingers and a sound that is
unlike most other basses.
If budget was unlimited what bass (modern or vintage)
would you buy for yourself?
I've still not owned a Fender Jazz. I really should get a
nice one - vintage or otherwise. I quite fancy the Geddy Lee
signature.
I have to ask this... what's your favourite bassplayer
joke?
A woman is on trial for beating her husband to death with
his guitar collection. Judge says 'First offender?' She says 'No, first a Gibson!
Then a Fender!'... tumbleweed...
What
plans do you have for the future of Chowny?
We have a new bass coming out that we're very excited
about, but I can't reveal anything about it yet. It's a signature bass working
with a prominent YouTube bassist. We've also got some more pedals in the works
(Octave, Compression, etc) to go along with our recently released Fuzz Pedal. And
then I think I'm going to have a rest. And let the range sit a bit before adding
anything new - at least for this year. We'd like to expand our dealer network in
the USA a bit too - hopefully by attending NAMM in 2018.
Click on the links below to find out more about Chowny Bass Guitars
© Get Ready To Roll - 17th June
2017
