[GUITARIST PERFORMING WITH A NORMANDY GUITARS ALUMINUM ARCHTOP]

JIM NORMANDY: I’m Jim Normandy. I’m the president and CEO of Normandy Guitars. I started doing this about 15 years ago and just launched the company this year. They’re the only aluminum archtop out there that I know of or have been able to see, and they’ve just got incredible tone actually. When you hear them play, it’s kind of a combo between old classic kind of archtop old ‘30s guitar. With the modern materials, it’s just kind of a good combo.

[GUITARIST PERFORMING WITH A NORMANDY GUITARS ALUMINUM ARCHTOP]

We wind our own pickups. You have -- They’re over-wound, not too much. They’re about 12k ohms and wax potted so that you don’t get any of the microphonics. I kind of love the bells and whistles in terms of what we have. Switch-wise that sets the guitar apart, I put a kill switch on. The old Gretsches used to have a kill switch for Chet Atkins because he would switch it off and the sing and then do some, you know, clap, that kind of stuff, and you know like some of the guitarists later in the ‘60s and the ‘70s started playing with it, you know, so it’s kind of a neat deal.

The front pickup has its own volume, has its volume, and then the bridge pickup has its own individual. We do use Warmoth necks. Yeah, they custom-make them for us. Best. They’re the best. Got to do it.

[GUITARIST PERFORMING WITH A NORMANDY GUITARS ALUMINUM ARCHTOP]

About 15 years ago, I’m a bass player, and I wanted an acoustic bass but I couldn’t afford it. It was three grand, and so I started tinkering around with ideas to build one and started working with aluminum, and I made a few prototypes and people were tripping. They were like, “Wow, this is cool. Can I buy it?” I’m like, “No.” And so, the interest was incredible, so I just started thinking about guitars. That was 15 years ago when I started doing that.

The metal flecked paint that we have, there’s a guy that does low rider cars and does all the candy apple and all that stuff. It’s pretty neat. I thought, “Man, that looked cool.” I tried to make all my finishes something that has to do with metal, so the powder coated. This one is called School Buss, and that’s the exact color they use on school buses.

[GUITARIST PERFORMING WITH A NORMANDY GUITARS ALUMINUM ARCHTOP]

I just try to think of stuff that’s metal and has rivets, right? So, definitely Army Green came to mind and School Bus obviously and chrome, man. Chrome’s kind of the flagship. That’s the amazing part. It just it looks incredible up on stage. WE took one downtown last night to a blues bar and gave it to the guy onstage. I thought he was just going to play one song but he wouldn’t put it down. He played the whole night, and then gave it back after he was done. It was pretty cool.

We use Gotoh tuners. They’re super heavy duty, and I’ll show you the back too.

INTERVIEWER: Are those the 18:1 ratios?

JIM NORMANDY: Eighteen to one. Yep, all nice tight gears. I really like them. They’re affordable but they’re high end too.

And this is the Bigsby B70 and I get this roller bridge from them as well. This thing, I mean once you stretch the strings once of twice, you got the roller bridge and the graphite Graph Tech nut. It just stays in tune so nice, you know. Want one?

[GUITARIST PERFORMING WITH A NORMANDY GUITARS ALUMINUM ARCHTOP]