According to news which broke this week, "Cardboard Chaos is back and never truer to their name, because chaos is an understatement when you set out to make an arch-top acoustic guitar out of cardboard. When Ernest Packaging partnered with famed guitar builder Gabriel Currie at his Detroit shop, they made the impossible happen. It was spontaneous. It was improvisational. It was a definite vibe."
“Sometimes the best ideas come from a simple place, build something cool with people you believe in. The cardboard acoustic is one of those," said Dave Lee, one of the co-creators of Cardboard Chaos and Cardboard Sessions. "After the Strat and Tele, we started talking with Gabriel at Echo Park Guitars and immediately felt that spark. Taking it in a Benedetto-inspired hollow body direction pushed it into something way more complex. More risk, more unknowns, more room to fail. That’s the space we like to work in.”
"The idea of making the arch-top electric acoustic guitar had been floating around in the minds and hearts of the Cardboard Chaos team for over a decade," a statement reads. "Like every one of the previous cardboard creations (which includes a surfboard, slip-on Vans sneakers, a snowboard, a skateboard Tony Hawk took for a ride, a Fender Stratocaster and more), it starts in the innovation lab in Southern California at Ernest Packaging with Mike Martinez and his team. Carving archtops, backs, slides, and multiple necks make out of poly and paper. Mike had to stay open to everything and push the cardboard to its absolute limit so he could trade fours and eights with the next genius on stage all the way across the country: Gabriel Currie."
“Cardboard guitars. Detroit. Gabriel Currie, master builder at Echo Park Guitars," adds Lee. "There was no way we weren’t doing this. The fire behind it, to make something raw, interesting, and beautiful was all we needed. This one had to hit.”
Photo by Marc Wierenga @marc_wierenga
