Here's a Neutron in "bass boat" silver (click to see it bigger, Satellite photo).

In the final part of this interview series with Satellite Amplification‘s Adam Grimm, he talks about why his amps are embraced by punk rock guys (it’s the vintage in them), his “bass boat” tolex (my term for it) and amp pricing. He’s a great interview, and you will be seeing more from him in the future.

AmpGAS: How do your amps get that sweet feedback? Is that what you wanted and dialed it in, or is it just a byproduct of the circuit?

Adam: That amp [the Atom, which is the model I played] is exactly what I wanted. At one point I thought I’d discontinue everything and just make that amp. That is my favorite, the one I love to play all the time.

And I don’t do very well leaving things alone. I do revisit it every once in a while, to try to tweak the circuit and make it better, but have not been able to from my personal tonal standpoint.

That being said, there are a lot of people who like all the other models of amps I do as well. The other ones make me happy too, but the Atom is just my personal favorite.

Why do you think your amps have been embraced by punk musicians?

Part of it is that’s what I grew up playing and it’s what I like. A lot of these guys are my childhood heroes. It so weird to me – I’m blown away that these guys are so happy with my amps. It’s awesome.

Punk rock has gone through a number of different stages over the years. But one of the things tonally most guys go back to is vintage gear.

One reason is because [in the early days of punk] that’s all they could afford. Back in the day, a ’59 [Les Paul] Junior was an old, used guitar nobody wanted. Same for an old, beat-up Marshall. So they were using whatever they could to sound as mean and pissed off as they could. And most times [the amps were] run wide open.

That’s kind of the same aggressive sound I’m going for with the stuff I build. I ended up expanding the line – a lower-powered amp, one with more clean headroom – but when you dime them they have that pissed-off dimed-amplifier sound.

Nowadays a lot of people are making vintage things. The reason is because a vintage Marshall sounds awesome and is better than anything Marshall is making today. I’m not trying to be insulting to Marshall, it’s just that a late ’60s Marshall is one of those pivotal pieces of music history and they’ve never been able to recreate it with any reissue.

So the reason punk guys are coming after my stuff is that’s the sound I’m going after, the same sound those guys are going after.

I know for a fact that very few of those guys have gotten wealthy off their music, but they love it so they’re still doing it. They’re still going after the ’50s Juniors and early ’60s SGs or whatever because of how they sound.

The other thing I like about the punk rock crowd is they won’t lie to me. If they don’t like it, they’ll tell me it sucks. You can’t buy these people. Everyone paid for their amps. None of those quotes on my website are endorsements. We don’t give amps to anybody.

Jonny 2Bags got rid of his ’68 and ’69 plexis to play my amplifiers. They’re gone – he doesn’t have them anymore – and that just blew my mind. Wow. I probably would have played my amp and kept the plexis, but he got rid of them.

This head just screams "punk" – to me, anyway (Satellite photo).

Your amps are relatively inexpensive for boutique amps. Why is that, and will it last?

Pricing has always been an issue. When I started this business, I had just shut down another business and had some spare cash from it which helped fund the guitar amplifier business. We did the NAMM show right when the whole economy fell apart – that’s right when we really started to push the production line [different amp models].

I had 35 different store [owners] come up to me [at NAMM] who said, “Your amps are amazing, we’d love to have them, but we don’t have the money and there’s no space in my shop. When we have it, we’ll give you a call.” At the time I’d just raised the prices, so I had to figure out what do. Raising prices when everyone has no money doesn’t work, so I figured, Let’s suck it up.

I’ve had to raise prices once since then, and will have to do again soon. So our amps are not cheap products, they’re just inexpensively priced right now.

Every time I raise prices, I’m also trying to bring something out that’s less expensive. The Little Bugger [prototype], which I had at the New York/New Jersey Amp Show, has a retail price right at $1,000.

Most musicians I talk to don’t have $2, $3 or $5,000 to buy an amp, especially in this economy. Most people, if they do that, they’ll do it once. So when all the amps go up $100 [this] month, I’ll put the Little Bugger in the product line.

I have another amplifier probably coming out – it may be at the Nashville Amp Expo – that I’m shooting for a $700 retail price point for, to make it less expensive to get into a Satellite amplifier.

Two other low-wattage amplifiers are in the works as well [at a low price point]. All of these lower-priced options are built just like the rest of the lineup: designed by us, and hand-built by us right here in my shop in San Diego. Nothing is ever outsourced.

Another product coming out is called the Luddite Attenuator. It should be at the Nashville Amp Expo. It’s an all-tube, all-analog attenuation device. It can handle 250 watts being pumped into it.

Cool! I really like the sparkly “bass boat” tolex on the heads. Is that kind of a signature thing?

The sparkly stuff isn’t all we offer, but it’s what I tend to bring to amp shows because it’s more attention-grabbing. The sparkle coverings are usually used as car upholstery fabrics.

Kustom Amplifiers used to do a tuck-and-roll version of their amps with similar cloth. A few other companies have used it as well. We just found a brand new supplier of amp coverings that I’m extremely happy with. Thirty-nine colors and patterns, all extremely durable. Check them out at the Nashville show.

The amp business can be tough, especially with all these cheap Chinese products on the market right now.

Cheap products that are poorly made end up hurting the entire industry, from the maker to the retailer to the player. Foreign-made knockoffs are really just hurting all the innovators they’re stealing from. Even when a major company decides to lower their build quality, it only hurts in the long run.

We know the course we’re going is the right one in the long term. We take a lot of pride in what we do, and we’re very family oriented. The makers, the retailers, even the players – we’re all in this together.

Notable

> No good YouTube videos of these stellar amps, unfortunately. Kind of a bummer. I will try to rectify it soon!

> Here is a description of each Satellite amp model, plus a downloadable price sheet.