Today we get to question the nerdiest of nerds, Jesse, from RUDE Tech!
Q: What was your first encounter with guitar and/or pedals?
A: I was talking with random people on Yahoo! chat back in the late 90's, and the thing to do was to recommend music to each other. That's how I found out about The Aquabats!, Minor Threat, DEVO, The Cure, etc etc. Punk bands were the best because I saw young people playing music, and that got me stoked on getting a guitar so I could do that too. (Squier Strat in the combo pack, if you're wondering.)
Q: When did you start getting into building?
A: My Squier combo amp kept cutting out, plus I had a used DOD Attacker from Nashville Used Music that the battery clip would always break . I'd try to fix them... and soon I was opening up everything--broken or not--just to stare at the circuitboards.
Q: When did you design your first pedal?
A: I built my first pedal when I was 12 out of the back of a Popular Mechanics magazine. You ironed the a page of the magazine onto a copper plate and then let it sit in ferric chloride acid to dissolve the copper, leaving the traces behind. My mom was a saint for letting that go down in her guest bathroom. It wasn't until 2021-ish that Zach (@mythospedals) told me Craig Anderton used to design project circuits for Popular Mechanics and it all clicked for me that it must have been his design.
Q: What do you do for a living?
A: Just this! I got my B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and eventually worked as a scientist at an aerospace testing complex... but I went full time with RUDE TECH in 2013-ish doing custom designs for studios here in Nashville.
Q: Any long term goals?
A: I'd like to design a custom RUDE TECH housing from bent steel. It's all hush-hush for now, but it'll have a lot of quality-of-life features that guitar players with crowded pedalboards will love.
Q: Any other hobbies besides music?
A: Skateboarding. I'm good. Real good.
Q: Pets?
A: A black, three-legged shop cat named Leland Pawmer.
