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ESP Guitar Shops
ESP Guitars are located in North Hollywood in California although the company originates from Japan. It was founded in 1975 when Hisatake Shibuya opened a shop called Electric Sound Products in Tokyo. The original focus behind the company was to provide high quality replacement parts for guitars under the ESP brand. These spare parts were first introduced to the US in 1983 and around this time ESP began crafting their own guitars for local New York artists. These artists included Ronnie Wood, Bruce Kulick and Vernon Reid. During this period ESP Guitars also began producing bodies and necks for Kramer and parts for Robin, Schecter and Dimarzio. 1990 and 1992 saw ESP Guitars expand their signature series by signing deals with many artists and the replacement parts business was discontinued in order to switch focus soley on the guitar and bass lane as well as the custom shop. 1993 saw the company move their headquarters to Los Angeles and by 1996 they had created a more affordable line of production. The company is currently split into two production parts with the LTD line being made in Korea and Indonesia and the ESP branded guitars being imported into the US from Japan at vastly increased prices.
ESP quickly found a nice creating hot rodded and custom shop versions of other guitars for famous US artists, these designs included tweaked Fender Strats and Teles as well as Gibson Explorers. Gibson eventually filed a law suit to prevent this copying of designs from taking place. In 2002 ESP Guitars was noted as one of the music industries fastest growing companies. When Fender bought out Jackson one of the companies main competitors was removed from the playing field and the stage was set for ESP Guitars to continue growing and to move into the position as one of the most recognised luthiers for unique, high quality instruments. 2005 saw ESP Guitars celebrate their 30th anniversary with a number of unique lines including the James Hetfield "Truckster", the LTD EC-500 and B-500 and other various signature models.
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