Fender CEO Says They Could Have Done This Better

Phillip McKnight (0:02)

The Know Your Gear Podcast.

Hey, everyone, welcome to the Know Your Gear Podcast on September 18th, 2026 I hope you guys had a fantastic week, and are ready for some guitar talk. We'll talk about some guitars, some gear, some other things. I have some cool stuff to share. There was some crazy announcements, leaks. I'm sure some of you guys are going to reach out and talk about that live, but I don't know. I got some emails about some new product leaks that happened, and we'll talk about all that stuff. Hey, Phil, I started a YouTube channel, and I've been working it for a while. Did you know or when did you know? He says, did you know or when did you know? He says, your channel was blowing up. I don't know. I'll let you know when happens. No, I don't know. I thought it was blowing up when I got 300 views. Well, that was basically on Facebook, maybe 3,000 views.

When I got 300 views the first time, I remember thinking like I don't know 300 people. I know that sounds crazy to think like, what? When you got 100,000 subs, didn't you think that? No.

That's not how it works.

What I will tell you about this is simple.

I don't know if you'll ever be able to understand when or if you think whatever your channels gained some kind of momentum. It doesn't come in a very qualifiable way. In other words, to say, oh, if you got 20,000 subs, you've made it, or if you got 100,000 subs, you made it, or if you get so many views, you made it, or if your content is shared by a certain famous person or something like that. I don't know if any of that actually rates. I think in my mind, like I said, the first time I got 300 views, I remember thinking that's more than my inner circle. It's everybody more than I know. And I was like, okay, so this is expanded outside of that. I remember thinking that was kind of strange. And I gotta tell you, I think of it this way. When I started doing my channel, I was sharing information with my friends. It never occurred to me to share information with the world.

And so, that's how this evolved into what it involved into. It's like, well, people talk about, like I did a video once where it's like, who makes who, who owns who, right? And I was talking about who I write checks to at the store. Like, oh, well, this company is this company because I write the check. And in your mind, you're probably going, oh, he did that to get views. But in my mind, I was making it for the people I knew. And of course, I knew some extra people were coming. I just wasn't thinking like, oh, I'll get more views. So, you know, I guess my answer is you won't know. But definitely try to enjoy what you're doing because it's going to be everything.

Everything. If you don't enjoy this, it's not going to work.

So let's see.

Let me grab another one.

This one's from Clayton. It says, hey, Phil, you have walls of guitars. Oh, yeah, that's two walls. That counts. I was like, walls? I guess that's two walls. Yes, I have two walls of guitars. I see a few basses. How often do you get a new bass? And are you happy with your current flock? Are you looking to add a new model? I have four basses and I'm good.

I have a signature bass. It's just mine. So I did a video a couple weeks ago when I talked about that I don't have a signature instrument. Well, actually, the bass I made wasn't a signature instrument for me. I just requested it not be a signature to anybody else. Like our signature, you know, put my name on anything. But it was made specifically for me. It's custom made for me. My other bass is custom made for me. And actually, my third bass is custom made for me.

So and then the fourth bass is a Stu Ham Urge prototype bass. So that's it. And it's because I'm a huge Stu Ham fan and I love that bass. So yeah, I kind of I'm good. I'm golden. The basses probably will change in time. Acoustics are the same thing. Like I really like acoustics. I really like basses. However, you know, they don't garner as much views or as much interest as the electric guitars. And so I don't buy as many for the channel and put them on the channel. So sometimes I'm waiting to see if any companies want to send stuff out and companies really don't send basses and acoustics out as much. We're getting definitely more acoustics. Maybe we'll start getting more basses. It's kind of an interesting thing. When I started just a few years ago, just a few years ago, I could I could tell you that an acoustic or a bass would not get as many views as electric or a fraction of views. Now they get about 80, 90 percent of the views of my electric videos. I think it's because of the format that I've created that seems to be bringing the people in.