The idea that a gear manufacturer would spend time promoting its rivals’ products might seem laughable, but JHS Pedals’ Josh Scott has made, if not a career out of it, then certainly a YouTube channel.
In a new interview with Guitar World, the hugely popular stompbox maven says that his unlikely pivot came when he realised that the traditional pedal promo method wasn’t doing it for him or anyone else.
“It came really from being frustrated,” he says. “I really hated demoing pedals because I felt like a car salesman… I hated sitting there and, basically, copying Andy [Martin] from ProGuitarShop… It wasn't very fun. It looked OK, but nobody watched [the videos].
“Then, in my office, I would pull out a guitar every once in a while and just play a riff on Instagram and it would get, like, 20,000/30,000 views. Nick [Loux, Creative Director at JHS] came in one day and he's like, ‘I'm spending so much time crafting something, and you just stand there [and get more views]! Let's just start a YouTube show, and you just talk about history, like you're doing on Instagram…’”
Scott says that his new approach was so unconventional that other companies were convinced that his intentions weren’t quite as pure as he was letting on.
“I remember getting messages like, ‘Hey, I see what you're up to...’ But it was like, ‘No, I'm really just talking about other companies because I think they're cool.’ People couldn't handle that. There were companies that thought I was trolling or scamming them.”
One of the manufacturers that Scott singled out for praise was Behringer, a big player that often likes to portray itself as a disruptor. As such, suggests Scott, the company’s reaction to his positive video about its pedals caused a certain amount of consternation.
“The Behringer episode was one of the first to explode, and I heard through the grapevine that the CEO, Uli Behringer, lost sleep over that episode,” he says. “He came into the office and he could not comprehend why a pedal company would tell you to buy other people's stuff - and I love that. When I found that out, I was like, ‘I'm on to something!’”
The video in question has now racked up 2.5 million views, and the JHS Pedals YouTube channel has almost half a million subscribers. Being nice about other companies’ pedals hasn’t damaged its own standing, either: high-profile fans of JHS hardware are everywhere you look.
“I remember seeing a photo of Noel Gallagher with our pedals, or Radiohead,” says Scott. “I've still never met Noel - probably don't want to - but Radiohead, they're sweet guys.”
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