Meet Eddie Carlino of Carlino Guitars in Medford

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eddie Carlino.

Eddie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started building guitars when I was 13 years old. I couldn’t afford what I wanted to get on an allowance so I got a paper route and went to buy my first guitar at store and it was a 1977 Ibanez Paul Stanley Model IC1000. I had just discovered the band KISS, and I wanted to play those songs and I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted it. My mom took me to this store called Tavian Music in Cambridge, Mass and we ordered it. I made payments on it off weekly from my paper route and for graduation, my dad took me to the store and he paid off the balance for me and I took the guitar home. I then started taking lessons at a store called Tufts Guitar Studio which was right down the street from our house. The guy looked at me and said, “What do you want to play?” I said ” Love Gun”, he said No, we’re learning Melaguania. I said if I learn Melaguania, can we learn Love Gun after that? He said yes. So I learned Melaguania. Then I asked him to show me Love Gun and he said no. SO… I went home and tried to learn it myself.

That guitar I bought, the Ibanez Paul Stanley Model seems to have been that one special puzzle piece that will again be the magical mystery piece that 40 years later will have some precedence over my future. Today, 40 years later, I am in the same block of stores that I took lessons at when I was 13, and now I am actually working with Paul Stanley of KISS, making his guitar straps and working on and customizing his actual guitars. He called me on Super Bowl Sunday on my cell phone, I’ll never forget it at 1:16pm. I said hello, and the voice on the other end said, ” Hi Eddie, it’s Paul Stanley” I think I had my first heart attack right then and there. I told him the story I’m telling now and he said, “wow it really has come full circle”. And it just goes to show you that hard work, staying with something and working until you get it right really does pay off. Paul is a world class Rock Star and could have anyone in the world make his straps and work on his guitars and he chose me. And I will never forget it. He now owns a guitar I made called the Impulse and he gave me the greatest compliment saying it was well built, played great and sounded enormous. I’ve been working for him ever since and the best is yet to come. I made Swarovski covered Rhinestone PS10 modification to one of his guitars that he just finished a European tour with and he absolutely loves it. I just completed his 2nd one and it is on the way to him right now, this one, with a variation in black rhinestones, it is stunning and a true stage guitar. In between those 40 years, I built my first guitar in high school in regular wood shop. Not the Vocational part, just the regular wood class, once a week. It was one of my favorite guitars I could never afford, it was a copy of a BC Rich Mockingbird Supreme, it still hangs in my store today. I got an A from the teacher for the woodworking, and it truly is a piece of art. I built a few more over the years and then got a real job after graduating working for a supermarket and then a pharmacy for the next 28 years and learning about how business works. I then was laid off from my job because of budget cuts and said, I’m going to do something for myself, and I used the tools I learned running that pharmacy and opened my guitar store. I then developed my current day models, took me years to get the shapes right and the ergonomics and the way I wanted them to be. I wanted my guitars to have everything guitars in store were missing. Today some of the biggest rock stars and celebrities have my guitars, from Paul Stanley, Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick, Paul Crook from Meatloaf, Jimmy Vivino a world class studio and tonight show guitarist and even Conan O’Brien the Tonight Show Host. Thanks to Rick Nielsen, My guitars have appeared on the Tonight show and even on a show called American Pickers, lol. Now my current project is having a more affordable version being made overseas in 4 different levels and 7 different shapes built in Korea, a very high quality factory that produces the highest quality instrument made overseas. This will allow the regular guitarist who likes my guitars to be able to have one and not spend $3500 for the US model. So… I also now make guitar straps and have sold over 600 of them, and everyone says, they are the best quality guitar strap you can buy anywhere. From fabric to studded leather to Rhinestone encrusted stage straps to lightning bolts, and flames, I can create what you have in your head in leather.

Very exciting right now is that I’m working with a band called the Dives, a band Evan Stanley started with some friends in New York. The name sounds familiar, yes, it is Paul Stanley’s son, and while you won’t hear a KISS song at any of his shows, Evan has the writing ability of the Beatles and the playing ability of Joe Bonamassa. He’s become a great friend as has his band members Mike Lefton, Sergio Ortega and Jimmy Meier and I highly recommend checking them out. They completely love my stuff and they actually, just opened for KISS in Europe and every member of his band was wearing and using Carlino guitar straps. But it’s more than just that, it’s exciting helping them because reaching out to people I’ve made friends with in the business is a good networking way to get these guys the notice they deserve. It’s the best thing that has ever happened knowing Evan and his mom and dad, I’m truly blessed. And it all started with me sending him and Instagram message telling him that I liked his music and was wondering if I could make him some guitar straps.

They absolutely love them and I feel like every strap I make him, he automatically connects with Right now, The Dives are on a country wide tour to support their Everybody’s Talking EP and the carnival has just begun for these guys.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has not been a smooth road, the first year was very tough. The first day I opened my store was Nov 7, 2003 and it was also my last day of work at CVS. I left at 2:30 and open my new store at 3pm the same day the first day I did $7.43. 🙁 The second day I think I did $11.00. The first Saturday I did $350, I sold my first guitar and that customer still comes to my store to this day, His name is Jared Selfridge and he is one of the most aggressive guitar players I’ve ever heard. Things got busier, I got more lines of guitars and things excelled from there. Business was great but with great power comes great responsibility. I had to have everything people asked for. That’s one thing I did learn, you can’t have everything…where would you put it. I leaned my selection, I discarded brands that weren’t working for me and I only carried things that had a great turn in the store. Most places carry 400 kinds of guitar strings. And if you notice they’re always there the next time you go back and they were almost always out of the brands people bought. I learned one rule of thought that, 90% of a stores sales is made up from only 10% of their inventory in stores like mine. I had to find out what was working and what wasn’t and it was my store, not Guitar Center. Now I have a very lean line, made up of Guitars that I know will sell, and accessories that I know fly as well. I also make a lot of products now from Guitar straps to guitars to laser engraving on guitars that you wouldn’t normally expect. I bought a laser engraver in 2007 because I wanted to get some name plates made for the cases for my guitars. I called a company to make the plate, a 4 x3″ size of plastic with Carlino Guitars on it. They told me it would be $8000 to develop it and $3.00 a plate after that. I was blown away of the guys explanation of what the $8000 was for. He said, overhead, insurance, payroll, the payment on his machinery and time to develop the piece. Well, I said thank you and decided to do it myself. I researched a laser cutter, ordered one, got it, then learned how to use it myself. I made the plate, took me awhile but it didn’t cost me $8000. Now I know that laser like the back of my hand. The things I can do with that machine, with the final products I produce, actually brought tears to one woman’s face. I’ll bring up Evan Stanley again, Evan needed something to get his mom for Christmas, I suggested a jewelry box, he was all over it. I made one for him to give her out of Tiger maple, flamed Hawaiian Koa and actually lasered her name onto the tray dividers I made for the insides. I inscribed a message Evan wanted and he gave it to his mom, it’s actress Pamela Bowen by the way, and she cried when he gave it to her. I heard that and I knew I had made his day. At that point it’s not about money, fame, glory or anything, it’s about moving someone’s emotions with something you created. Another moment I’ll never forget. He gave has dad a fully loaded Rhinestone Guitar strap I had made as well.

Now I’m moving my location to a larger store because I’ll have my own guitar line in and I need the room. I have a biz partner now that is helping and with his help, this next stage is becoming a reality. I built my own web sites from day one and found out how the internet works and how it doesn’t work. Its trial and error, and you have to learn from mistakes on how to promote and hoe to tag and everything else that is SEO related. I’ve become a known brand and I’ve sold items all over the world, from Iceland to Malta. But, I’m still me and I don’t change who I am because of it. everyone that comes in my store is treated like a rock star. And some day you will be working with rock stars and it really does happen.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Carlino Guitars – what should we know?
My company Carlino Guitars is a retail store, but I also manufacture high quality guitar straps, made from the finest leather and materials into designs and fashions that are the new thing in guitar playing. It’s the newest accessory that was always overlooked. A guy would spend $4000 on a brand new high end PRS guitar and $8.00 on a nylon strap. It boggled my mind. Do you want that high end guitar to be down played by the boring strap?

Compliment it and you by getting a strap that’s worthy of it. Not only do my straps look good and set themselves apart from anything else that’s out there, they actually make your guitar feel better on your shoulder. There are four parts to the strap, from the 5oz select high end leather facing to the proprietary temper-pedic cotton inner padding to the secondary soft layer of leather to the deer tanned 4 oz. backing. It make you play longer with less fatigue and it will look great. I have one customer his name is Tracy Jenkins a good friend as well, and he has I think 14 straps now. They are not cheap, they range from $139 for a very nice padded fabric strap to $249 layered leather designer series straps, to $350 600 count studded rock n roll straps, to $700 Swarovski Rhinestone loaded straps and everything in between. I have clients from Justin Timberlake to Piggy D. from Rob Zombie, to Alee, to Paul Stanley of KISS to Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick to Conan O’Brien and more using my guitars or straps and that must mean something. I also make guitars which we talked about in the earlier section. we also have a repair department with the fastest setup times around, 1-day guitar setups, and no one has that in the area. We also offer guitar and bass lessons and offer Berklee College of Music graduated teachers on staff including Joe Feloni who in my mind is probably the best guitarist in Boston. He’s played all over the world professionally, records in his studio and he can bring you from the edge or your seat to dreamland with the notes he squeezes out his guitars. With him teaching you, you’ll not only sound good, you’ll play the correct notes as well. I also offer laser engraving services on anything that walks in the door. I just need an idea and sometime to program it in and your idea will come to life. I think what’s to come is going to be the biggest thing besides the guitar strap business. Having my full line of guitars on the wall with a distribution network of dealers around the world. All of my guitar model’s names begins with the letter I, Why? If ford can do it with their cars, Escort, Explorer, Expedition, Escape, etc., I can do it with guitars, I have the Identity, Impulse, Icarus, Inertia, Isotope, Immortal, Illuminati, Inubis and the Idrenaline. Why the ‘I”? I like the font and the way it displays the “I” in each model name. It looks cool and it works.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Who else deserves credit, I would say my hero is my Parents because it’s all how you are brought up. My dad went to college while we were growing up as kids and he worked for Tufts University as controller of the University campus in Medford and pretty much everyone came to him to fix problems. He use to bring home work for us to do like stuff bills in envelopes for students. He taught us value, trust and how to be nice to people and be the best you can be. My mom was the nicest woman on the face of the planet, I’m more like her I think. She passed away not too long ago and it was my biggest heartbreak, but I think I got my caring attributes from her and to be nice to everyone. You don’t know what you have until it’s not there anymore.

I would say in business, Dean Guitars has been elemental in my success as well. Working with a great guy named Jon Puhl at dean, who is the best rep anyone could ask for. He has given me opportunities that I never could have seen on my own, Jane Anderson at Dean as well, who bends over backwards for the past 15 years because she believes in me and I appreciate all of it. And of course Elliot Rubinson who was the owner of Dean, who passed away from brain cancer this year. He gave me the break of a lifetime, and I was the biggest USA Dean dealer around. I came up with new ideas, broke new grounds with these guys, tossed around ideas and they weren’t afraid to do them. I came up with ideas and guitars that made into the regular production lines in their catalogs and it was amazing, and I knew I did it, that’s all that mattered to me. So now I do it for myself.

And I think my regular customers are also my supporters, guys like Jason Hamelin a student of Joe Feloni, a teacher at my store. Jason is a dad who started coming to my store with his kids, he is now a rocker, a great player with a band of his own called Terminal 51 and an album to boot, and plays around town and he loves it. There are many heroes and there are many that aren’t. There are some people also that always try to bring you down, even in my situation, no matter how good it was, I always had people that came in and tried to bring me down and it was usually because I made something out of myself and they couldn’t and they’d fail and they’d try and transfer that onto me and make me feel like my ideas would never work. Well, sorry I’m in control of my destiny not the negative attitudes of others. Life and success starts and continues with you and only ends when you say it does, that’s my motto.

Pricing:

• I have Guitars from $200 to $5000, from beginner to pro and everything in between.
• I will make a strap to your design and have over 150 designs that are my originals, straps run from $17 -$700
• We have very competitive lesson rates at $35 per half hour, (always runs longer lol) and always a Berklee teacher and a very flexible schedule

Contact Info:

• Address: 392 Main Street Medford, Ma 02155
• Website: www.carlinoguitars.com www.carlinoguitarstraps.com www.laserwooddesign.com
• Phone: 781-391-4600/ 617-271-6872
• Email: eddie@carlinoguitars.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlinoguitars/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carlino.guitars
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Carlino_Guitars
• Other: http://stores.ebay.com/Carlino-Guitars

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