Sweetwater proudly represents hundreds of the music industry’s top brands. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that every brand is powered by people who share our passion for music. These are people worth knowing. People you’d want to kick back and talk music with over your favorite beverage.
People like the pedalpushers at JHS Pedals. Since early 2007, Josh Scott and the crew at JHS Pedals have been hand-assembling some of the music industry’s finest pedals and mods. Who is responsible for putting all this power within toe’s reach? We decided it was time to pull back the curtain and talk to Josh and the JHS crew about their work, music, hometown, and of course their favorite gear. Let’s meet JHS Pedals…
Who are you and how did you team up with JHS?
Joshua Heath Scott: I am JHS, Joshua Heath Scott. I created JHS Pedals.
John Pennington: I am John Pennington and I handle R&D and Repairs. I met Josh about 13 years ago before JHS was a company. We played music together, and even built our first pedal together. It sounded horrible… (we asked John to elaborate, to which he responded, “God. Awful. Buzz.”
Steve Offutt: I’m Steve. Basically I am the General Manager at JHS Pedals – kinda do a little and a lot of everything day-to-day. I’ve been with JHS Pedals now since 2011. I’ve known Josh since around 2008-ish and we occasionally talked about teaming up to help with the business side of things if JHS ever grew to that point. 2011 was a pretty explosive year for JHS Pedals growth and over a few discussions Josh asked me to come on board with the company!
What would you be doing if you weren’t doing this?
Joshua: I would be a professional musician or a teacher.
John: I would be a Worship Leader.
Steve: Who knows….. probably some account manager at some random Kansas City firm somewhere… LOL.
What did you want to do when you were 10?
Joshua: I wanted to be Larry Bird…. I loved basketball.
John: I wanted to play Shortstop for the Chicago Cubs.
Steve: For a long time I wanted to be an airline pilot.
First band name? When did you play?
Joshua: Around 1997 and our name was Slowburn. We did horrid covers of okay songs.
John: In 1995 I was in a band called Savage Garden.
Steve: I dabbled somewhere around 1994-95. This band called Absolution asked me to join as a 2nd electric guitar. We were screamo before screamo became mainstream. We fizzled out.
What pedal effect isn’t out there that needs to be?
Joshua: That’s tough. I think that so many companies are pushing the boundaries and we are seeing so many great ideas come to life.
John: The EHX D9 – a drum machine synth generator of 80’s synth drums.
Steve: Oh man, I dunno…. that’s like an impossible question …so much great stuff out there!
One guitar, one pedal – go:
Joshua: Elliott Tonemaster and a JHS Morning Glory
John: Gretsch White Falcon and a JHS Kilt
Steve: Telecaster and a JHS Morning Glory
If you could play one set with anyone, who would it be?
Joshua: John Mayer
John: U2 and The Edge
Steve: It’s probably so cliche, but I’d love to play a set with Coldplay – but it’d need to be probably a 2.5-hour set, not a wimpy 60-minute thing. They’re not even my favorite band, but their shows look/sound phenomenal and looks like it’d be really fun to be a part of that performance. U2 would probably be tied with Coldplay for me.
At JHS, the best day is spent _____________.
Joshua: Creating new ideas and manufacturing at our fullest potential. When all that is clicking it is a blast.
John: Building protos of new designs and having them actually work, while NOT answering emails or talking on the phone.
Steve: Working with our awesome team. Our best ideas sometimes come from our jokes – there’s such a positive team mentality here and I love helping keep the mechanics of everything in place and moving forward. Good mechanics and business foundations allow us to have a lot of fun and explore new things.
Where do you like to go in Kansas City that out-of-towners don’t know about?
Joshua: Man… Probably a restaurant in Westport area called Corner Restaurant. If you are in Kansas City, just do it.
John: I’m a fan of my house….. I also like to eat at a Taqueria called Dos De Oros.
Steve: Kansas City’s food and mixology scene is exploding right now. There are so many excellent restaurants, chefs, and mixologists. I often say to visitors that Kansas City has a very similar vibe to what Portland, Oregon, or Austin Texas had several years back, before they became really big destination cities. Kansas City will probably become a destination city in the next 5-10 yrs for the midwestern. The Rieger Restaurant and Blue Stem are both amazing. Manifesto or Toms Town are great for cocktails.
What are the biggest trends in gear that excite you right now?
Joshua: I think it’s the wealth of ideas and the ability to turn those ideas into reality. It’s almost a golden age of sorts right now!
Steve: The new Behringer synth looks unreal. We try hard to maintain a “community over competition” mentality. We’re always going to be competitors with other guitar pedal companies, but we’ve tried really hard to also build up genuine friendships with some of our biggest competitors even to the point of helping each other out. There’s certain products that we would have never done had it not have been from some advice and help from guys like Jon Cusack, Robert Keeley, Philipe Herndon (Caroline), Jamie/Julie of EQD,…. the list can go on and on.
“It’s hard to imagine that just in the short 10-year history of our company, there are pedals on the market that literally have more computer programming than it took to put the first rockets into space. The speed of technology amazes me.” – John
JHS Pedals and Sweetwater are a great match because _____________.
Joshua: We are both obsessed with customer service and we both started small, one guy doing his one thing.
John: We make great pedals that are on the front end of the industry, and Sweetwater is the industry leader in sales and service. Two companies that have set trends instead of following them.
“Yeah ditto what Josh said… customer service is a huge value here and also at Sweetwater. We love what Sweetwater brings to the table for the MI industry.” – Steve
