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Phil McKnight has literally been taking guitars apart on his Know Your Gear podcast for a decade. With 46k subscribers and video views surpassing ten million (at press time), McKnight is one of the industry’s most trusted voices on gear. His often provocative, yet educational videos span subjects such as “The Better Investment: Refret or New Neck?” “Nobody Understands P90s,” “Tube Amps Are Dead and Here Is Why,” “How Everyone Ends Up Buying the Wrong Guitar,” “Guitar Brands Only YouTubers Play” and beyond. McKnight is also known for bringing humor into the equation. Even when he is criticizing something quite strongly, it appears to be an outburst based in love and learning, rather than a tirade for clicks.
On the Humorous Take on Gear Reviews
There's a saying I love: “You can't make fun of something you hate.” There's just no way. It becomes bullying. It's not humor. So, when I'm talking, my audience doesn't hear bullying. They hear humor. They hear admiration. They hear love. When I'm complaining about something, it's not because I'm mad at it. It's because I love it and I don't want anybody to destroy it.
His First Guitar Center Experience Didn't Start Out Well
I grew up in Tucson, and you didn't see high-end gear. You’d watch MTV and see what your idols played—Hamer guitars, Soldano amps and what have you—but you ever saw them in town. So, me and my buddy Pat drove all the way from Tucson to Guitar Center Hollywood to see a Soldano amp. There were also all these amazing high-end guitars on the wall, and we asked, “Can we play them?” They said, “No.” [Laughter.] But we didn’t care. We had brought a disposable camera and we took pictures of them. When we got back home, we drove around showing our friends the photos of us standing next to this gear, and they thought it was the most amazing thing they’d seen. It was as if we said, “Hey, we just hung out with Slash.” It was all about loving something. We just wanted to see that stuff and be around it. I’m still like that today.”
Does He Buy the Guitars He Takes Apart on Know Your Gear?
Here’s the seedy underbelly of YouTube. Some companies get YouTube. They grasp the concept of what's going on. You have content creators and they're going to make entertainment, and manufacturers and retailers will receive some financial benefit because they are in the content. But some companies don’t get that. So, my problem now is, if I was watching a car reviewer, I’d think it was weird if they didn’t review a Chevy, a Ford and a Toyota. You don’t want the reviews to be about these strange cars no one has heard of, because they were the only models the reviewer could get. How I fixed that for me is we do partially sponsored content, and then we take 100% of the revenue from sponsored content to pay for non-sponsored content. It does feel a little unfair I’m rewarding the companies that don’t work with me, because I buy their stuff and put it on the podcast. But I don't think of it that way. I think of it from the audience’s point of view. If I were watching a guitar channel taking apart a Les Paul, the viewers should also see a PRS and Novo. They want to see what everybody's stuff does and looks like. Compare and contrast. That’s how I’m able to spread out the content.
What Guitar Innovations He Applauds
My favorite innovations deal with resources. I mean, if you have a good music store and/or a good repair shop nearby—that’s great. But what if those things are not available to you due to financial issues or distance? But now manufacturers can build guitars that are almost bulletproof, and they also don’t need maintenance. For example, if you have a spoke wheel truss rod and stainless-steel frets on a guitar, those are two things you’re probably not going to have to deal with if they’re seated correctly. Taylor’s Action Control Neck means you may never have to do a neck reset on a $4,000 guitar. Pretty amazing. These innovations I’m all for. I’m not saying we should put repair people out of business, but I think they would be better served modding guitars and making them better, instead of having to fix them.
Why Innovation Seems So Difficult In the Guitar Industry
There are two problems with the guitar market. You have a traditional market, and it's the thing we love by far. Those guitars have been on all the albums and recordings we love, and on guitar magazine covers. But there are flaws. It's not their fault. They started in the ’40s and ’50s, and they made what probably was the greatest thing ever. Massive innovation. And then, over time, some issues apply. Now, somebody figured them out and worked through them. The problem is, when they figured out these issues, the guitar is no longer the thing we love. It's something new. This is why new companies can make something innovative. They are not held to the traditional values. Like, everyone complains about Gibson or Fender, but if those companies did what they wanted to do today, no one buys it. They’re kind of in a bad situation.
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