“The heavy metal thing was not my first intention”: The creator of EMG pickups never meant for them to become the choice of metal guitarists
At this year’s Guitar Summit in Mannheim, Kris Barocsi and Guillaume Chenin from Thomann sat down with EMG founder Rob Turner to talk about the company’s early days – and how his studio-minded designs unexpectedly became a cornerstone of heavy music.
“The heavy metal thing was actually not my first intention,” Turner admits. “When we started making product, we were more into the studio sort of aspect of it – for cleanness of the signal. You could record it direct, you could play it through an amp… and that was the primary intent.”
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He adds that EMG’s design brought several unexpected benefits. “You didn’t have to ground the strings of the instrument anymore. It sounded the same wireless as it did through a cable. It was very predictable in that sense.”
But as Turner explains, that clarity and consistency also made the EMGs irresistible to the growing heavy metal scene of the 1980s. “The heavy metal crowd adopted it because I believe the cleanliness was part of a necessity,” he says. “The passive humbuckers were a little too muddy. And when you wanted to mix them in, it was very difficult to find a spot in the mix. And we just happened to become a part of it. It was not an intention by any means.”
That unexpected rise to prominence was helped by a serendipitous early encounter with one of metal’s biggest names: “Kirk [Hammett] was the first one to actually… he called up and said that he wanted to do an instrument, but I had no idea who he was. I don’t think he knew who he was, actually,” Turner recalls with a laugh.
According to Turner, Metallica were still trying to secure a record deal at the time: “He was in a band and they were trying to get a record deal and all of that,” he says. “But he had this purple Stratocaster that he brought up… it had two single coils and a humbucker in it, and we just simply, you know, did an installation for him while he waited. He took it back with him, and it kind of went from there.”
That modest installation would go on to help define the sound of a generation. By the late ’80s and early ’90s, EMG’s active pickups had become synonymous with heavy metal – prized for their powerful tone, surgical clarity, and noise-free performance.
Watch the full interview below.
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