Senior Master Builder Mike Shannon
In conversation, Mike Shannon is so unassuming and down to earth that you might have to remind yourself that he is in fact a legendary figure whose acclaimed guitar craft dates back to the earliest days of Charvel® and Jackson®.
Despite having no guitar-building experience before he started at Charvel in 1980, Shannon was already a veteran woodworker with experience and expertise building fine furniture. Shannon still recalls his initial interview, when he was shown and asked to identify a piece of wood.
"I identified it correctly and they said, 'Okay, this is a good start!'" laughed Shannon. "I didn't know anything about guitars at the time, but I knew about shapers, table saws, joiners, and various woodworking tools."
Landing the gig, Shannon soon had major hand in designing and building many famous guitar models by Charvel and, later, Jackson. One of Shannon's earliest projects, in fact, was building Randy Rhoads his second Concorde guitar, which later led to the Rhoads. He was also there for the birth of the Soloist, the Kelly, the King V, the Warrior and the Dinky.
Although Shannon joined the Fender Custom Shop in 2000 as a master builder, he returned to the Charvel/Jackson fold as a senior master builder in 2003 when Fender acquired both of the high-performance guitar makers.
In nearly four decades with the Charvel Custom Shop, Shannon has built some of the most sought out instruments for many of the world's finest guitar players. Although he has never learned how to play a guitar, Shannon has still earned rock star status in his own right - thanks to his remarkable craftsmanship.
While his woodworking talents are many, Shannon may be best known for his truly gifted touch when it comes to sanding necks. Challenge Shannon with any guitar neck back shape and thickness measurement and he can head straight to the sander, freeform at will and achieve dead-on calibration results.