The first few days of 2024 have been filled with an abundance of excitement for Chibson USA.
Only a few days into the new year, Chibson released their short film “Dan O’Neill and The Air Pirates” commemorating the Disney character Steamboat Willie’s entrance into the public domain. The short film, released to Chibson’s YouTube page, received positive feedback from fans and viewers and was even featured in an article from Guitar.com (read here).
However, the excitement surrounding Chibson would only be amplified when less than a week later, Schecter Guitars would release their 2nd Machine Gun Kelly signature guitar known as “The Razor Blade”.
With this release came a massive wave of backlash and confusion aimed at both the company and their star, Machine Gun Kelly. The company’s social media would become flooded with countless people questioning the company’s decision and letting their feelings be known about the new oversized razor blade shaped guitar that shared a familiar look and feel to what Chibson USA has become known for…ridiculousness.
With literally hundreds if not thousands of fans tagging Chibson in the comments of Schecter’s Razor Blade post, Chibson wasted no time formulating a calculated response by offering a Disposable Razor version of Machine Gun Kelly’s new signature guitar.
Blade guitar despite the waves of negative responses, prompting many YouTubers to post videos about the instrument. The noise surrounding the polarizing guitar was so noticeable that Guitar World Magazine went on to publish an article about the whole campaign and its similarities to Chibson’s creations.
(Read the article here)
Chibson did manage to release another tribute to Schecter’s MGK Razor blade while also tipping the hat to rectangular guitar player and blues pioneer Bo Diddley with a Gretsch/Schecter hybrid.
With the Schecter/MGK release in the rear view window, one can only imagine that these guitars will go onto be one of the most infamous guitars released in 2024 (and we are only in the 3rd week of the year) and we predict that this sudden backlash may only increase the instruments value in years to come.
Chibson founder, Jason USA was quoted as saying, “I don’t mind the shape and look of the guitar, in all honesty. I only wish they would have brought me on as a consultant.”
As for Chibson’s legacy, it can only get stronger having such a new and close connection to the wildly popular and often talked about Machine Gun Kelly.