Upon talking to my friend Daigo about heavy metal music, he told me something I never knew. We were watching a clip from crazy-cool guitarist Steve Vai live in Tokyo. My friend pointed out and began talking about the guitar that Vai was playing. It was an Ibanez. What Daigo then said suprised the heck out of me.

He said that great guitar company Ibanez was a Japanese company. This came as a shock to me mostly because of the name. Ibanez is definetly not a Japanese name. I always assumed that Ibanez was American or something since the the name is a Spanish surname.

So, the facts are that Ibanez was started by the company Hoshino Gakki of Nagoya, Japan. In the 1960s American guitar seller Harry Rosenbloom picked up Hoshino Gakki instruments for distribution in the US. The Japanese name was assumed not to be attractive in the market so the two looked for a new name. This new name came from a company that Hoshino Gakki recently purchased, a small Spanish guitar company, Ibanez. Hence the now famous and respected name.

More Rockness,

Now, I got most of this information off of Wikipedia but that doesn’t matter. I never and would have never questioned where a company such as Ibanez was from. It is satisying to learn something that you would have never thought of educating yourself about. Special thanks to cool people who introduce that sort of information. I feel a bit smarter now, if you didn’t know that Ibanez was Japanese, I hope you do too.

For some further study, other Japanese guitar manufacturers include ESP, Yamaha, and Takamine.

Some cool Japanese bands that use Ibanez guitars are Drug Store Cowboy, Head Phones President, Onmyo-za, and Yamaarashi.