The patch cable has been pulled.

There comes a point in many young people’s lives where they decide to pick up a guitar, whether it’s to impress girls, let out some teenage angst, or because their high school refused to let them take just two classes in a semester even though they already had the necessary credits to graduate, because that meant the school would get less funding from the government, and then their guidance counsellor told them, “I’m sorry, Steve, but my hands are tied. Why don’t you take something fun like Guitar Class?”

And for young people in Japan, a lot of first guitars were made by Fernandes, a Saitama-based company that started in 1969 and grew to receive worldwide recognition. Their guitars were especially popular in the ’90s, having been used by members of Metallica and Green Day, while in Japan, they were often held by guitarists in the visual kei genre of rock, including those from bands like X Japan and Buck-Tick.

▼ Here’s Hide of X Japan playing his Fernandes (often labeled as Burny) Yellow Heart model.

By 1999, their sales were flying high at about four billion yen (US$26 million), but have been on a steady decline since and fell to 166 million yen ($1 million) in 2022, landing them about 24 million in the red. Despite some efforts to pull out of the slump, Fernandes finally had to file for bankruptcy in June of this year.

It’s fair to say that times are tough for a lot of businesses these days, but the spectacular fall of Fernandes left many wondering what happened to cause it in online comments.

“There are just too many secondhand guitars on the market now. Plus, people don’t even need instruments to make music anymore.”
“My first guitar was a Fernandes.”
“Sad… It’s the end of an era.”
“Does anyone even buy instruments anymore?”
“Once visual kei went down in popularity, times got hard for them.”
“I bought a Fernandes bass and guitar because I loved Hide.”
“They’re still great guitars. It’s just the times have changed.”
“The policies of the LDP are making all kinds of great companies crash. They need to go.”
“Most people don’t buy instruments anymore, and those that do can only afford one.”
“Notice how everyone is saying ‘My first guitar was a Fernandes,’ but not their second, third, or fourth…”
“People don’t have the endurance to learn an instrument with all the instant gratification content out there.”
“The music industry is going down all over the world. It’s all EDM now.”

Saying everything is EDM is kind of a cop out. Having grown up in the ’90s, there was a hell of a lot of EDM back then too, and don’t make me pull out the Macarena to prove it. Even as I write this, rock band Mrs. Green Apple currently holds about a quarter of the spots on the Billboard Hot 100 Japan chart. The world’s top musician, Taylor Swift, is also a prominent guitarist, and a lot of younger idol groups are increasingly instrument-oriented. So, even though the musical landscape has changed, guitars still seem to be a big part of it.

What happened to Fernandes was most likely the result of how the company was run or, as one comment pointed out, the general economic conditions of Japan as a whole. It was also reported that the brand name was sold to another company, but it remains to be seen if that means future generations around the world will continue to pick up a Fernandes as their first guitar.

Source: Tokyo Shoko Research, My Game News Flash
Featured image: Pakutaso
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!