JOE WALLACE: I'm Joe Wallace for Gearwire.Com. We're on the floor of NAMM 2007, and I'm here with Nikki O'Neill, who's one of the endorsees for Daisy Rock. How are you?

NIKKI O'NEILL: Good! Thanks.

JOE WALLACE: Now, tell me a little bit about what Daisy Rock has done for you as a performer and how you like the guitars and just your feelings about the line in general.

NIKKI O'NEILL: Okay. Well obviously, I've played other guitars before, all the classic brands, and they're great sounding guitars but I would struggle with them because my hands are very small and they're usually heavy so you play a gig for two hours, you're shot, so I was approached by Daisy Rock last year and got to check out their guitars and they feel comfortable. I'm like finally there's something that I can play comfortably and not struggle, and I wish I would have seen these guitars when I started out because it would have made life a lot easier.

JOE WALLACE: Now I know a lot of struggling artists are looking at you with a little bit of envy because you've got an endorsement. How does it work for people who don't know they want to get to where you're at but they have no idea what the mechanics are and, you know, do you approach them? Do they approach you? How does that work?

NIKKI O'NEILL: Okay. I think there are different paths of doing it. Some people, they tour a lot. They have exposure that way so they can get an endorsement that way. I got it through teaching a lot. I was in Sweden and in New York, just teaching at women rock camps, schools. I had a class called Women's Contemporary Rock and Blues Guitar in New York. It's like the only university-level class that taught about rock players like Bonnie Raitt and stuff like that. So they thought that was interesting, and so I got out and met a lot of girls and exposed them to guitars, and so that's how I got my endorsement with them. So I believe there are different ways of doing it. You just gotta be creative, and if people don't give you work opportunities, figure out your own, like create your own work, and maybe it doesn't pay at first but it will. If it's a good idea, it'll take off, and yeah I think that's the way to do it. But there's definitely a lot of different paths.

JOE WALLACE: Now you're going to demo a Daisy Rock model here for us. What are you holding here? And give us a little bit of a description.

NIKKI O'NEILL: Okay. This is an acoustic Pixie model I believe, and this is a new color they have, the Pink-Purple Sparkle, so it's a good light guitar. It's got a nice thin neck, slim neck profile as they say so it's really comfortable. If you have small hands, you get a good grip and it's got a nice finish on the back of the neck, so it's like you can really -- I don't know. I think a lot of girls will like it, it's not a struggle to play it, and let's see if I can.

[NIKKI O'NEILL PLAYING A DAISY ROCK ACOUSTIC GUITAR]

'Cause I play a lot of R&B music so that's kind o what I do, but I'm sur this is a great finger picking guitar also

[NIKKI O'NEILL PLAYING A DAISY ROCK ACOUSTIC GUITAR]

it's comfortable to play. I think it's a great guitar for a beginner and for like an intermediate player, it's very cool and it looks awesome. You look like a rockstar when you're playing it.

JOE WALLACE: well thanks a lot. I have been talking with Nikki O'Neill for Daisy Rock on the floor of NAMM 2007 in Anaheim, California. I'm Joe Wallace for Gearwire.Com.