Hi David! First of all – thanks for the interview. A lot of our readers don’t know the eugg.eu page yet. Could you tell us a bit about the page, the idea and the team behind it?

In discussion with some of my Facebook friends who have a mutual interest in guitars we talked about how there wasn’t a community of guitar playing in the EU. There are quite a few buy/sell groups that don’t allow for discussion or allow posts on discounts. As we all know we are all together in the EU and we should start to help each other and get to know each other a bit better. We talked about how to best do this as we decided a new group would be the best way to go. It’s had a great response so far and we would love for the community feel to really take off.

We would like people to post and discuss and new guitar companies, new bands trying to get support for their upcoming album release. Guitarists who want to talk technique. Just proper discussions about the things we all love – music and gear!

All the admins would love for bassists, drummers, singers and triangle players to come and discuss what they love in this group, show off their talent also. We will try help them out by getting discounts on gear but will talk about that later 😉

There are a few Facebook-Groups, Forums and shops in the US putting together similar discounts, group-buys or special-runs from various companies. How is the response from the EU-based users and EU-based companies so far?

There seem to be lots and they are doing their thing well but as I said previously we want this to be for the musicians of EU. We are a joined state of countries whether we all like or not! We want to do this differently to other groups and have this community feel and make everyone feel a part of it. We have admins from most of the EU countries but would also welcome more and get everyone involved as much as much as possible. Firstly we don’t take commission for anything we organise and most of these so far have been through our contacts we have had before joining the group.

An interesting fact which quite a lot of people don’t know but as a Business teacher I share with all my students is that Grand Theft Auto V outsold the whole music industry in the same year. It’s already tough for musicians especially those who still have to purchase their own gear!

The initial idea for this group was to get discounts for everyone. I have always looked at equipment in America and discovered how cheap it was to get a Mesa Boogie amp (John Petrucci Fan – like most) and over here was nearly double the price! I always wanted a brand new Road King but could never have bought it. So I thought lets try get a group who are interested in buying gear and reduce the costs and try to negate the import prices and tax. Then again we should also support EU companies as there are some fantastic companies doing great things and help those companies out.

Examples of what we have done so far for our members:

  • Sabre Guitars 10% discount on custom guitars.
  • Lace pickups 15% off all pickups 25% off some seven string pickups.
  • Reamping online 20% off
  • Protones Pedals 20% off with Guitar Candy
  • Driftwood Amps 10% off custom amplifiers
  • G1 Productions 20% off mixing and mastering
  • Two Notes wall of sound giveaway

Thats not bad for being 3 weeks old! We also have quite a few more coming in the next weeks.

We want people to share any discount codes they discover for stores as shipping these days in the EU has gotten cheaper. We have a marketplace where we have tried and will continue to try get a partnership with a shipping company to get the cheapest prices to ship second hand gear around the EU.

Can you share some details about upcoming discounts or special-runs?

Tomek from Blackat has just reopened his new workshop and is currently doing a run with a special discount for EUGG members. The run will start in April. This is a great opportunity for anyone in the EU and he has just released his prices. Please check out our Café for more info on that.

We also have a couple of giveaways lined up but can’t let people know which companies just yet!

Some of your readers may have heard of Legator Guitars, they are trying to get into the market in the EU. We have been lucky enough to get an exclusive run with them for anyone living in the EU. It will be a production model and price/discount on this run is so low that we can include the import duties and tax in the final price which is not to different to the prices in Dollars. Lets just say this guitar is so exclusive that all the 1st strings and 6th/7th string are different lengths by a couple of inches. This will be starting very soon!

We hope to get more companies/individual on board. If any company is interested please email us at info@eugg.eu we appreciate any help!

Most importantly we can offer more discounts/giveaways and special runs if we get more of a following so please check our FB Page out at: https://www.facebook.com/EUGGD