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 THE
"VOICE" OF FENDER
An
Interview with Morgan Ringwald,
Director of Public Relations for
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation
By
Mark Wong / Edited by Jason Chan
ATS:
I would like to thank you in advance for taking the time to
do this interview. We know how busy you are. To start, will
you please share your job title and description with our readers?
MORGAN:
My official title is Director
of Public Relations for Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.
In a nutshell, the “main mission” of my job is
to maintain FMIC’s image in the press for both the company
itself, as well as all of its brand names and products.
I
oversee all of our press efforts, whether that be product
reviews in the four major consumer magazines (Guitar Player,
Bass Player, Guitar World, and Guitar One), company features
in our industry’s trade magazines, as well as any other
news media like newspapers and television. I also have a hand
in our charitable efforts, web content, trade shows …
all of us at FMIC wear a lot of different hats! Oh yeah, I
also oversee the distribution of our season tickets for D-backs
games.
ATS:
That sounds like a pretty big job! Now…what about yourself?
Can you share some details about yourself and your musical
influences?
MORGAN:
I grew up in Corona del Mar, California and my childhood was
probably pretty typical of anyone who grew up in the ‘70s
and ‘80s…the only video game was Atari and we
didn’t own one. We were right on the coast, so I spent
a lot of time in the ocean and a lot of time playing outside
in general with my friends. I had older cousins who never
really lived more than two blocks away, so I would always
tag along wherever they went. I’m sure I was a pest,
but I was hanging out with older kids who were into music
way before kids my age were. I was listening to Oingo Boingo,
the Sex Pistols, and Van Halen by the time I was 7.
ATS:
You had a lot of musical influences from an early age. Was
there a musical “turning point” for you at all?
MORGAN:
I think I was really first blown away by music when I started
listening to my parents Beatles albums. I would plug headphones
in and listen to The White Album over and over and over again.
I
also remember when I was about 8, my Dad was watching “OnTV.”
Remember that? You had a box on your TV with a knob and when
you turned it “On,” you got movies. It was pretty
revolutionary. It was a Saturday night and “The Kids
Are Alright” was on. My dad called me over and said,
“Watch this with me. This is the greatest rock ‘n’
roll band ever.” He bought me my first guitar soon after.
ATS:
So you do play guitar? Did you receive any formal training?
MORGAN:
Yeah, I play guitar. My only real training came from my dad
who, to this day, can play two songs. The first one he taught
me was “Blackbird” and I think the second was
“The Needle and The Damage Done.” We spent months
going over those songs part by part and I still play them
both incorrectly today. My dad wasn’t much of a player.
Like many players, I learned some surf tunes and some Stones
from the teenager down the street. That’s really it.
I
don’t have much of a background or experience. I grew
up on classic rock for the most part, but Southern California
in the ‘80s was really a hot bed for new music. The
local alternative station (when “alternative”
was still alternative) KROQ really played a lot of great stuff
that you couldn’t hear anywhere else. In addition to
my folk’s old LPs, I really got into bands like X, The
Plimsouls, The Specials, etc. These bands still get regular
play on my CD player.
As
for the guitar, I’ve been playing for over twenty something
years, but it’s always been by ear and always just for
fun. I spent some time locked in my room at around 13, but
I never became obsessed. I’ve been in a total of one
band and that was as the bass player because the other guitarists
were so much better than me. We played zero gigs in college
because we all had such different influences and could never
agree on what to play, but we always had fun.
ATS:
What’s in your guitar collection?
MORGAN: I’ve
got a couple of electrics (Fender and Guild) and a couple
of acoustics (Guild). The problem is that I work at Fender,
so I borrow guitars every now and then and when the strings
get rusty, I bring the guitar back and take a new one home.
Repeat process and enjoy as many guitars as possible.
ATS:
That sounds like a dream come true for anyone who plays the
guitar! The strings get old, so get a new guitar! Other than
guitar playing, what other interests do you have?
MORGAN: I’m
a college sports fanatic! Other than that, I spend all my
time with my 11 month-old daughter. She’s a blast …
goofy, like her dad. I also do all of the cooking and I love
to work in the yard. My wife does the actual gardening, but
for some reason I really love just mowing the lawn and maintaining
my drip system.
ATS:
How about your formal education and training? What did you
do to get where you are today?
MORGAN:
I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in film making (a lot of good
that does for me!), but the best education I ever received
in business was working in Promotions for PolyGram Films and
Universal Pictures. I had an incredibly dynamic boss who taught
me a great deal and really had confidence in my ability. I
told her I was applying at Fender and she was really supportive.
More
informally, I learned a great deal about life and people following
the Grateful Dead in my more youthful days (Insert hippie
joke here).
ATS:
Ah! A Deadhead! Morgan is no stuffed shirt! So how did you
end up at Fender?
MORGAN:
While living in Los Angeles, my wife had worked with Fender
on a fundraising event she was working on. Sometime later,
she was reading the Sunday LA Times and saw the Fender logo
in the Want Ads and they were looking for a PR Director. We
both went to school in Arizona and were starting to miss it
and we both agreed it would be a great opportunity for us.
I applied that day, followed up with phone calls, got the
interview, and got the job.
ATS:
What do you do on a day-to-day basis at Fender?
MORGAN: Really,
I do a lot of writing. Press materials, annual reports, correspondence,
etc. I speak with most of the gear editors of the consumer
magazines almost daily, fielding questions, getting gear images,
and review models sent out, that kind of thing. I don’t
do a lot of cold calling to “pitch” Fender stories
to magazines outside of our industry. The great thing about
the name Fender is that people call me. I’ve made some
great relationships that way and they have done a lot for
us. Really, I could tell you just about every writer or editor
at the men’s lifestyle magazines who play guitar.
ATS:
What are the challenges and rewards of your job?
MORGAN:
The hardest part is probably being tactful all the time. That’s
really my job…to be tactful, well spoken, and polite
and it’s not easy to do all day, every day. In a lot
of ways, I am the voice of the company whether I’m writing
on behalf of myself or anybody else in the company. Being
consistent and accurate is always a challenge especially in
a company of musicians.
It’s
all rewarding. I take a lot of pride in the job I do and the
fact that I am entrusted with the image of the company. I
guard it fiercely and to the best of my ability and I really
enjoy seeing my work in print in magazines, newspapers, or
on television.
ATS:
Are there any new or revolutionary changes ahead for you and
your job?
MORGAN: Nothing
new or revolutionary. We are dabbling a bit in video these
days and I think there are some great opportunities for us
to put new product demos on the web and with the actual products,
but we’ve never really been a “media-based”
company. Finding the time and the money for these projects
is not easy, but we’re thinking more progressively these
days and we’re experimenting a bit.
ATS:
Let’s get down to the hard stuff. What do you think
of Internet forums?
MORGAN:
Love and hate.
In
general, people on Internet forums represent a very small
part of our market. The problem is that they are vocal. If
one or two people have a problem with one of our products,
whether it is our fault or that of their retailer, all they
have to do is mention it on a forum and suddenly it’s
an epidemic of bad quality control. Once something like that
gets into a public arena it kind of becomes my problem. I’m
probably one of the least technically adept people at Fender
when it comes to gear and specs and I try to find answers
to people’s questions as best I can, but doing so can
be a full time job in itself and I don’t have the time.
What a lot of people don’t understand is that we have
a Consumer Relations department to handle these concerns,
as well as an established base of service centers. However,
a lot of people think they’ll get all their problems
solved by posting on a forum.
And
don’t even get me started on how easily silly rumors
are started and how fast they spread!
ATS:
I completely understand you and I feel the same way at times.
What do you think about Fender having a forum of its own?
MORGAN:
Well, we don’t have one of our own and we’re probably
going to keep it that way. The second we start our own is
the second that people think we’ll monitor it and only
allow posts that sing our praises. There’s no credibility
in that whether or not that’s the case.
ATS:
Any final thoughts to our readers?
MORGAN:
Shut up and play your guitars! That’s what they’re
made for!
ATS:
I agree with that 100%! On behalf of all the readers and staff
at “All Things Strat,” I would like to thank you
for taking the time to do this interview and for giving us
some candid information about yourself and Fender. I hope
we can collaborate on other projects in the future.
MORGAN:
You’re welcome!
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