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Scot Buffington Interview

by Jim Bastian

Scot and Jim met in Little River, South Carolina to talk about the history of Evans amps, their research and development, their innovations, musical style and customer base, and their future.

The Evans name has been around a long time. Can you give us a brief history of Evans amps?

In the late 50’s, Jim Evans was playing on the Louisiana Hayride, and he really couldn’t find an amp that was powerful enough and clear enough…that was the problem back then…they had these killer guitars but they had to play through these really wimpy amplifiers. So, he finally developed his own amplifier, and he would have people come up and want to buy them off the stage. Soon after, people would use the amps at rodeos, for loudspeakers and PA’s! The earliest models came in a speaker cabinet, a head, and a reverb…all tube. And the price for one was 650.00, and people lined up to buy them at that price….that would be an astronomical price today, probably four or five thousand dollars. Jim had the company and at one point, around 1982, sold out to an employee, Darrell Stevens. Darrel and Brenda Stevens would work jobs and then come home and build amps in the evenings and weekends. This moved the company from Texarkana to Shreveport. Emmons pedal steel guitars were made in our town in Burlington, and they always carried Evans amps. Ron Lashley at Emmons told my dad, “Hey, I know this amp company that’s for sale if you’re interested”. He knew my dad was somewhat of a genius with electronics. My dad and my brother, in 1994, decided to buy the business and they called up me and my wife in Alabama and said “Hey, we’re gonna buy this amp business. Do you want to come work on amps with us?” So, I thought that beats starving in Alabama…I thought it sounded like a good idea, and we moved back.

When my dad and Tim went down there to buy the whole company, they had the truck loaded so heavy that they were blowing tires off this thing…they’d put brand new tires on it and be blowing them after going through about two states. They got it all back and we unloaded it. My dad was so smart…he had gone down there and figured everything out they did in one week. He figured out how to do it and remembered how to do it all, in one week. That’s how we started.

What’s your current role in the company? You’re the CEO…
Right. My mother and father owned the company, and last September my mother sold it out to me, so I own 100% of Evans Amps. I’m the president, and I’m also the grunt too. I’m the president, the shipping department, and the janitor, all in one! Someone told me I was the Evans amp builder for the universe.

Can you describe your facility?
Basically, my house is on two lots…I have one of the shortest commutes…I walk outside one door and walk right in [the shop]..it’s all under the same roof but the company’s on a different lot, and has its own address. Once I’m in my house, I can’t get to the company without going outside…so I can kind of leave it over there when I go home.

The shop is around 1500 square feet…something like that. It’s not that big…but the main thing is we need a long table to glue the amps [cabinets] on, laying the vinyl on. You need a certain amount of room but you don’t need a factory to build an amp….it can be done in a small area.

As far as big heavy shop equipment – sanders and the like – you don’t have a lot of that?
I’ve been getting rid of what I’ve got. A lot of that stuff I don’t even need anymore.

There’s a lot of cabinet makers that have missing fingers. Rich Raezor said he left the blood on the saw to remind him. If you’re cutting wood all you have to do is have your mind wander for one second. Like most good guitar players, I want to keep all my fingers on my hands! So I basically pay a cabinet maker to do it. And somebody that can do a better job than me…and then I don’t have to deal with all the sawdust!

What’s your favorite type of wood to use in a cabinet…what sounds the best to you?
The cabinets are matched to the speakers. I don’t just pick a size because it fits a twelve inch speaker. Whatever size it needs to be to get the maximum amount of bass without muffling the highs, is the size that it’s going to be. I use a certain wood that gives a really good punch. It’s designed to jar the floor and the walls and everything but not lose any upper end clarity.