Early beginnings:

I was born in 1963 in Chicago, and from the time I could hold on to a screwdriver, I was mechanically inclined and into hand crafts.  I was also always sick to my stomach, and it would become a defining feature to the progress of my life.

When I was ten, my mother grabbed my brother, two sisters and me, and we moved to West Germany where my mother was from, and I learned German in no time, as my mother only spoke English with my siblings and I, when absolutely necessary.

My first guitar:

Shortly after I turned 11 years of age I started to learn how to play guitar, with a borrowed instrument. Two months later I was crooning "Bad Moon Rising", so my music teacher cashed in on every favor owed him, and used a school discount to get me a full size high end Höfner classical, which I payed off by working in the school library.

I bought my first electric guitar at the age of 18 right after receiving a bachelors degree as an industrial electrician and starting my first real job in Germany.  It was a used 63 Höfner Galaxy made the year I was born, with a tremolo bar and electronics similar to a Fender jazz master.

I brought it home and It sounded great through my 50's tube radio, but It did not play in tune, so I brought it back to the store where I purchased it and they said it needed a setup.  They wanted a lot of money to do the work, but I voiced my dissatisfaction, and they gave in and set it up, and only charged me for new strings.

One month later it was all out of whack again, and I decided to study the phenomenon for myself, since I did not want to have to pay for frequent setups, and as a musician should know how to service my instrument anyhow.  ;Not only did I set it up, but I also figured out why it would not stay set up, and remedied the problem.

I joined a band, and besides a few of the musicians, some of the guitars needed work, and since money was tight their players were willing to let me experiment with them.  It became standard procedure to have me work on all of our guitars and basses, including a few other bands that practiced in the same building.  In 1984 after being lured by my father and lied to that my degree would be accepted and I could earn much more money there, I moved back to the U.S.A.

RDE Lutherie is born:

After moving back from West Germany to Chicago, I not only had a hard time finding a job, but my degree turned out to be worthless.  I did eventually find work, but I earned just enough to keep me above water without having to move to the ghetto, and my health started declining.  Without health insurance, I ended up in an emergency room on a few occasions, and although treated for the moment, I did not receive proper diagnosis, nor did any treatment do more than get me through a few days.  My medical bills grew faster than my pay would cover.

Once again I found myself setting up all of my friends instruments, and after reading several conflicting books on the subject, I started doing repairs to the wood and fret work, and conquered everything with great results.  People were telling me that they had payed good money for work from professionals, and that I did a much better job, so I decided to pursue it as a career.

In 1986 I came up with the logo after toying around with it for a while, and started charging for my service but much less than the stores did, that would not hire me without some more concrete background.  I converted a corner of my apartment into a workshop, bought many more tools, and ran the business on the side.  I did not advertise, and did not generate enough income to even pay for all of the tools and what not, so I could not break away from my regular job.

The Pumpkin Years

That same year (1986) I met Billy Corgan, and in a short time we became best friends.  I helped him in every aspect of putting the band Smashing Pumpkins together including coming up with the name (he still takes credit for that), and I had much more to do with it than Billy will ever admit to, or ever has.

I worked for the first one and a half years on a promise to finally get paid if they get rich, and stuck with them through thick and thin, as manager, tour manager and guitar/bass technician.  After a grueling six Years of service, I was still only making $350 per week, and standard scale wage for a guitar technician, servicing one player (not three), was $1200 in 1991, and almost always included a substantial benefits package.  I had no benefits especially much needed health insurance, and my health was worse than ever before.  When on tour, I averaged 5 hours of sleep a night, and in between tours, I only got payed for time in the studio, and had to find odd jobs in order to get by.

It was mid 1994 after another sold out tour, the band was just ready to record their 3rd album, where I demanded he treated me like the best friend he still called me, and payed me a fair wage, and possibly health insurance.  Beside the huge bank account the band had as a corporation, he had over $48 million in his personal account at the time.  His only response was:  "Your my friend, You should work for free, and be happy to go along for the ride."  I gave him a speech about what friendship means, what employment means and then some, and that I would not do one more thing for him unless he make amends, and I went home.  I had no reason to expect what happened next.

The following week I went to the practice space to pick up my check, expecting for him to have realized that I did deserve better, and that he could easily afford me at scale wage, because I was well worth it.  Boy, was I in for a surprise:

Not only did he not make amends nor apologize, he turned it around on me and said, "We decided to move on without you", handed me my last check, and went on about something else as if nothing had just happened.  I opened the envelope and there it was $350, no severance pay, back wages, no thank You for Your loyal service, nothing.  Needless to say, I had never felt that kind of sense of betrayal and devastation in my life.  When I headed for the door, he said: "Keep in touch, OK."  I said "yeah right" and was gone.

I could wright a large book on this subject, and some guy did, in a way that makes it sound like he was close to the band, he was not.  I had never met the author nor even heard of him until someone showed me his book, he is in fact a total fraud.

After this wretched experience, I was back to square one, without job, no money, being evicted, depressed and having to get a life once again.  I did get a few phone calls from Jimmy Pages people, but from what I had heard, he used his techs as scapegoats, and when asked they started beating around the bush, so I turned them down.  At that point I had enough abuse, and was not looking for more of the same, at any price.  Despite all of this, the sudden release from physical stress allowed my system to recover somewhat and my health showed some improvement.

Washburn Custom shop:

It was early September 1994 when I walked into the Washburn USA custom shop in Chicago, to try to get a job.  The shop foreman had heard of me through one of my clients and I got the job without filling out an application or giving them a resume.

Grover Jackson was the plant manager, and the only position he had open was sanding finishes, but offered that if I could bear with it for now, he would move me up as soon as he gets the OK from headquarters to rearrange a few departments, but that it may take a month or two.  I told Grover that sanding finishes was something I actually had little experience with, but that I will aim to master it as quick as I can, he said "Good, then by the time You hand me the perfectly sanded guitar, Your new position should be waiting." "When can You start?."

I started the next Monday, and the first guitar they handed me was a "Dimebag Darrell", which after 3 days of painting, and sanding in 3 stages, was to have a high gloss black finish, and high gloss black is the most likely to show off the smallest flaw.  In the following three days, while the other sanders kept their eyes peeled on my work waiting for me to screw up, which I didn't, each of them screwed up in one way or another, and some of them more than once.

On the third day I did the final and finest sanding of the first of five I was to do in that run, and polished all the surfaces the buffer could not get to, by hand.  The shop foreman Brady came in to see how I had done, and looked it over closely, turning it in the light and doing double takes.  Then he looked at me and said "No experience sanding eh?" I said "No really, just patience and attention to detail". He said "Well, looks perfect to me, lets see what Grover has to say", and brought the guitar to Grover.  Grover said that I had won, but I would still have to wait for a better position, but he would do his best to expedite the process.

When I showed up for my third week of work, Brady detoured me away from the paint shop and brought me into the room where the guitars were buffed, assembled, wired, set up and packaged and said "here is Your new department".  I asked him who my supervisor was, and he replied "You are", there I was supervisor of assembly, wiring, setup and final inspection.

There were very few people in my department, so most of my work was hands on, and the only supervising I did, was training new employees, and the occasional reminding people to not slack off.  When ever special instruments for specific artists came through I was to do the work myself, and got to work on instruments for Dimebag Darrell, Sammy Hagar, Michael Angelo Batio and Nuno Bettencourt among others.

In the few years I was there, it became more and more apparent that the owners were greedy and full of themselves, and my health was once again getting worse,  By late 1997 everything came crashing down, Grover Jackson had enough and quit, and many others followed suit.  Even though the new plant manager (Ex CEO of Saturn automobiles) asked me to be shop foreman, I had to decline, and told him he was on his own, and quit.  I got word two weeks later that he had resigned too, and they were moving the custom shop closer to the main office, in order to better oversee operations, which in my mind was a sick joke, since they were the ones that broke everything in the first place.

My first shop:

After quitting Washburn, I went home, got on the phone and called up every guitar player I knew, and asked them to spread the word, that I was open for business.  My apartment on Augusta Blvd. Just west of Western Ave. in Chicago, was a storefront at one time in the past, but the big window was removed and the front was bricked up in a way, that left a 2' high row of windows at the top next to the door.  The whole time I had worked at Washburn, I was preparing for the moment.

Where most people would have had a huge living room, I had dedicated work stations, and only a small area with a couch, table, TV, stereo, amplifier and other musical equipment.  I had a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom in the back, and also a second bedroom that I converted to a machine shop, for the loud and dusty operations.  Most of the shop fixtures and work stations I had built myself over time.

Since I quit Washburn, I could not get unemployment, and had no savings, as everything I made went into the shop.  It was a real make or break situation, and according to statistics I had no chance of survival.  With pure word of mouth advertising, I managed to stay in business for almost three years there, and built a solid and loyal following that was growing.  Throughout this time, my health once again showed some improvement, or at least did not set me back as it had in the past.

In march 2000 my landlord who I had a great relation with up to that point, decided to sell the building, and for some idiotic reason he thought it best to have the building empty, and decided to kick everyone out, even though he did not have a buyer yet.  The guy above me and I got eviction notices with bogus reasons stated, But since the landlord was a cop, he had us kicked out faster than the law allows.  had under 3 weeks to get out because he said that my place was commercially zoned, which it was not, and had not been since the 70's, but the judge even refused to ask for proof, and took his word for it.

Since there was no way I could find a place large enough in that short time, I made an arrangement with him to store the bulk of my shop in the basement, and he agreed to three months.  I got lucky and thanks to a friend of a friend actually got a storage space in Chicago.  I tried to call him, but that was not easy, as the whole time I had lived there he only answered his phone twice when I called him, but was there like clockwork on the first for his rent.  I finally got a hold of him after five weeks, and asked when I could pick up my stuff, and he said "I didn't hear from you, and needed the space, a scrap guy picked it all up last week" just like that.  Everything was gone, the whole shop and then some, in estimate easily over $8,000.  I had big machinery and enough exotic woods and hardware to build my first run of 10 guitars as planed, and was back to square one.

Back to square one?

I was unemployed, could not collect unemployment, and had a hard time finding a job after being self employed, which for some odd reason seemed to be frowned upon.  I had to move to South Bend to live with my father until I could pick up the pieces and move on.  I eventually found a job as a pitchman, selling stuff like super chamois at home and garden shows, fairs and the like.  It was lucrative until 09/11/2001 where the economy took a dive, and I just made enough money to stay on the road.  I always traveled with a minimum set of tools, and still setup and repaired guitars whenever the chance arose.

In this time my health got worse than it ever was, since I was constantly on the road, and unable to maintain a healthy diet.  It got to the point where I was throwing up almost daily, my teeth rotted uncontrollably, I had back pains so bad that I could not stand, sit or lay down, because nothing helped, had arthritis, kidney disease and all kinds of other stuff.

I did manage to slowly build up inventory once again, and in 2004 rented another storage space, that I stuffed all of my belongings into.  In 2006 when I had a good amount of tools and machinery stored there, it got broken into, and once again all the important stuff was gone.  I was on a dead end street with no end in sight, with a job that was not me, and feeling near death, so I had to break free and try something else.

Another shot at it:

In 2008 I moved back to Chicago, and found a job building microwave assisted chemistry devices, spectrometers and even custom devices for medical uses, research and development.  For the first time since I had moved back to the states I was in the field I had a degree in, and actually way beyond that.  I got to make parts by hand and machine one offs, design circuits and was even trusted to engineer things.  Even though the company was not doing well, and I only worked six hours a day at a much lower pay than I should have made, I loved the job.  Once again I started working towards opening the shop again, buying tools and making jigs.  My health got a little better, and I got down to researching what was ailing me with more force than ever.

In 2011 I was 48 years old and finally had narrowed down my health problems to an autoimmune disease.  There were only a few possibilities left, and I found the last piece to the life long puzzle, thanks to Dr. Oz:  Celiac disease.  I quit drinking beer and eating bread, and everything else that contained gluten.  At first it did not help much, but once I found out that gluten is used in just about everything, and made changes accordingly, viola, the results were amazing.

Within months I was finally pain free, which was something I had never experienced before in my entire life.  The arthritis, the back pain which was actually my pancreas giving out, the stomach pain and bowel cramps all subsided.  I still have some permanent damage, that can not be fixed, but for the most part I have recovered.

Although healthy, I could not control other things like the company I worked for going out of business and owing me thousands in back wages, my roommate breaching our lease agreement and the bad economy which once again had me looking for a job, this time with no results what so ever.

Once again, with no other option, I moved back here to South Bend late 2012, but did manage to keep my belongings, and with that RDE Lutherie is once again open for business.

Here I am:

So it's October 30th 2014, I just turned 51, and I just finished setting up a Fender Jazz bass, I know the owner will be happy, he was with the last one I did for him, and he is going to drop off an amp, when he picks the bass up.  It is all the work I have lined up for now, and since I don't have a store on grape road with a flashy sign out, and not enough income to afford to pay Google and Facebook by the click, which can add up real fast even without generating actual business, I have to be patient and take my losses until it catches on.

I can not write anymore here, as the rest of this history can not be written yet.  In order to add to it one day, it would help a great deal if you would consider my service, and get the word out that I am here.  All who do, will get the service they have been wanting but rarely if ever received.  I have performed well at it against all odds so far, so with my new found health it should only get better.