Lisa Loeb, Taylor Guitars' Bob Taylor on why guitar sales are soaring

Grammy-winning artist Lisa Loeb and Taylor Guitars' Bob Taylor join Yahoo Finance to talk about why guitar sales are up sharply and why that isn't a surprise during the pandemic.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Let's talk more about, um, what's happening in the music industry. This is one of my favorite topics, admittedly. I want to bring in Bob Taylor. He is the Taylor guitars co-founder and I believe Lisa Loeb, Grammy winning artist, is also good now. We've had some audio difficulties. I think we have resolved them but Bob, I do want to start with you. Um, we know that people have been doing a lot-- taking up a lot of hobbies, shall we say, as they have been home. Have they also been taking up the guitar? What's been going on with sales of Taylor guitars?

BOB TAYLOR: Well, it's incredible. We've never seen anything like it, Julie. It's just unbelievable. We-- we've always sold a lot of guitars. But we've never received a flood of orders like this year during COVID. They started pouring in at rates that were unfathomable to us and enough to, I don't know, 10x the amount of orders that come in at the rate and the number. And-- and so we're, um, and of course our factory was closed for some time because of COVID and we were able to open it up. We have a factory here in El Cajon, which is our main factory, and a secondary factory in Tecate, Mexico which is an hour away from us. And both of those factories have been reopened and they've-- the El Cajon factory has climbed to previous production levels and more. And the Tecate factory is almost back to where it was before.

And we hope to be able to go beyond that. Otherwise, people are going to be waiting a year to get their guitar.

- And, and we have Lisa Loeb here and I don't need to go through all of the awards, the number one hit, the two gold albums. Although I will do a little bit. What do you look for in a guitar because you're clearly one of the prominent musicians in the country. And people are listening when you say this guitar they're going to, you know, jump.

LISA LOEB: Right. Well it's funny I have had a lot of people asking me lately, which guitar to use because, um, they-- they know that I play. And so I always look for something that's easy to play for me and not to like, be a Taylor guitar commercial, but that's one of the things I love about Taylor. Is that they sound so beautiful but they're really fun to play, they're easy to play, and I feel like when somebody is returning back to playing guitar which I see a lot of friends who used to play guitar, you know back in high school or college, and they want to get back into it and be creative during this time. Or new guitar players, like my niece, wanted to play guitar. And so I suggest guitars that-- that are really fun to pick up. And it's always important to get your guitar set up, also. Which means making sure the strings, uh, feel good, they're close enough to the neck but not too close.

- Uh, Lisa I would-- I'd be remiss if I didn't say show us. I mean, you are Lisa Loeb.

LISA LOEB: Oh, I do have a guitar. No, but I mean like I'm playing guitar now. This is a custom Taylor. The neck is a little thinner, it fits my tiny hands. But, um, but I just feel like guitars need to-- it's kind of like golf. I know there's a lot of golf players and you have to have golf clubs that are nice enough where it's fun to play them. And-- and where it feels good for you. It's just like a guitar. And, um, during coronavirus, it's been amazing because I think just so many people are going to music playing to going back to hobbies that they maybe they used to do. I know a lot of us as professionals, I'm playing more live concerts online, fan club events, all kinds of things that I wasn't doing necessarily when I was on the road playing live. But there's so much more need I think for music, for, um, and guitar is such a social instrument as well as something you can really do quietly by yourself. You know, sometimes people need a little alone time during this coronavirus even though we all are alone at home together. You know what I mean?

- Lisa this is Dan, uh, I only play Guitar Hero, uh, which I just re-bought and have a lot of fun with it. My wife plays guitar and bass. She's looking to get back into it. I guess what's the best way to really start doing that again? To-- to really pick it up? You know, I mean she's got to re-string, obviously, everything but where-- where do you suggest people go?

LISA LOEB: Well you definitely want strings that are not rusty. That's the worst. But so you should go to-- you should probably go to one of your great guitar stores, your mom and pop guitar stores. Um, you can also go to some of the bigger box guitar stores. You can go online too. I found that there are great discussions about what are starter guitars. Um, and also when you're trying to play again, it's such an amazing time to play because not only can real teachers, like my-- my daughter takes ukulele lessons online with her teacher once a week. And it's a great-- you can still take guitar lessons with people and there are a lot of people out there who are teaching guitar lessons online as well as the unbelievable amount of websites with chord progressions. And what's great about some of these websites too is, it really ranges. They can give you a really beginners way to play certain songs and they can play-- you can do it all the way up to the most complicated real way to play the songs that you love.

I know-- I've been recording covers as well. And sometimes, um, when I get lazy instead of just sitting and figuring it out I look for some of these great YouTube channels or some of these great apps that tell me like how to play these songs so I could just do it quickly.

RICK NEWMAN: Hey guys, Rick Newman here. I think our audience should notice that Lisa Loeb has a rotary phone on the table behind her. That's kind of cool. Hey, uh, one of the things that's obviously happened during the last 15 years of digital revolution is people make music without using instruments. Uh, they just do it with software. So, uh, for-- forever-- for whichever of you get-- wants to answer, how do you encourage people to actually learn a hard instrument? Uh, you learn the music instead of just using software to make music?

LISA LOEB: Bob, you want to talk about that?

BOB TAYLOR: Well, I think that they do it by themselves Rick. Um, it's-- we hear a lot about digital music and how popular that is but we've been selling 160,000, 170,000 guitars a year for some years now and people gravitate to guitar. Even if they're doing electronic music and they're not playing an instrument at all. Eventually people just come to their own conclusion that it's time to put at least a track in there and the easiest thing to do that with is a guitar. You know, some people have electric pianos, um, but there's-- there's nothing like a guitar to-- to, um, sort of smooth out a song. And so people just get there.

LISA LOEB: And can I add that what's great about guitar and ukulele as well, um, you can play a million songs with three chords. So if you can learn just a couple of chords, it-- it's just-- I know as a kid I started on piano and I love playing piano. My brother is a classical pianist. But guitar is such a social instrument and it is such an instrument that you can really get in there with, you know, two or three chords. I even had a guitar once when I was in high school writing music, um, I had to borrow a guitar when I was studying acting in London and the guitar I borrowed was missing two strings. And I was still able to write and play all kinds of songs on a guitar. The guitar is mobile, it's light, especially acoustic guitars are very light. You can carry them around, look really cool. You know, with your guitar on your back. Um, but again, it's-- it's such an amazing and versatile instrument because, um, you can do everything from very classical and technique driven Jazz, guitar, all these things.

And it can be very academic to just you know, sitting and playing a song. And even right now with all the politics going on I've seen a lot of professional musicians and also people who are just very clever and very moved to play, uh, music. They have written great, you know, political songs or great, uh, songs that are parodies of-- of real songs to express themselves through music. So just, you know, to be able to do that to express yourself, to soothe yourself, you know, to be creative, to spend some time alone or with others. I play a lot of music with kids as well. I'm doing a kids event coming up on October 25 where we're going to be coloring but I'm also going to play some music and hear what they like to hear. So it's just, you know, guitar covers all of those bases.

BOB TAYLOR: I like to say that-- I like to say that red states and blue states both love guitar and it's really unifying thing to play music. And I'm going to give a shout out to the ukulele, too. Because a lot of-- kids are getting younger and younger and younger when they start their guitar playing. And a lot of times people ask me, hey have a three-year-old, I have a four-year-old, they show some aptitude. What guitar can I get them? And my answer is a ukulele. That's the best guitar to get a four-year-old or a five-year-old because of the fact that it's small and everything that you learn on a ukulele transfers into guitar a little bit later. I-- I know so many professional musicians and so many of them say it was never more fun than the first three chords. So, what-- what Lisa said earlier about what you can do with three chords, you can have a lot of fun and you can play music. And when you learn your fourth chord? It doubles, you know. So, it's just fun.

LISA LOEB: And it sounds beautiful. It's like everything sounds, like, beautiful. You know? It's so touching. You feel like you're doing like a TV commercial that's going to bring a tear to your eye, you know? Everything just sounds great. Even just one note. Look at that, it's so cool.

BOB TAYLOR: We're a musical-- we're a musical species. And, uh, when you can sit down by yourself and play music alone and then you get together with a friend and you play music and I want to tell you something else. The most generous musicians I've ever met tend to be guitar players. They'll sit down and teach you things and they're interested. Nobody makes fun of you because you can't do it well. And so you get together with your friends and-- and you get [INAUDIBLE] time, you know, it's just good. You get better at playing guitar.

JULIE HYMAN: And it's therapeutic also. I have to say I'm very much looking forward to when we can all congregate in person to see live music once again. We have to leave it there guys. Thank you so much. This was a pleasure. Lisa Loeb, Grammy winning recording artist. And I have to say we listen to your kids music in particular in my household. And Bob Taylor of Taylor Guitars, he's the co-founder. Thank you both so much, really appreciate it.