Bernie Rico Sr. with
an early Eagle bass
at his L.A. fabrication
shop on Valley
Boulevard circa
1977. A Mockingbird
bass and various
double-cutaway
Eagle and single-cutaway
Seagull
6-strings hang
behind him.
Photo
by Andy Caulfield
During the ’80s, the wild shapes of
B.C. Rich guitars proved to be
the perfect match for the over-the-top
theatrics of the burgeoning heavy metal
craze. The image of W.A.S.P.’s Blackie
Lawless dripping in blood while clutching
a B.C. Rich Widow in one hand and
a skull in the other was just one of many
that catapulted B.C. Rich to being the
No. 1 guitar company as metal came to
rule the airwaves. “The company grossed
around $175,000 when I started working
there and, with the [introduction
of the] NJ Series, it was up to about
$10,000,000 by the time I left,” says
Mal Stich, who was vice president of
B.C. Rich during its ascent. For this historical
retrospective, Stich gave
Premier
Guitar a first-hand account of the company’s
milestones. Additional information
has been provided by Neal Moser
and Lorne Peakman.
Although B.C. Rich has crafted an identity
as a metal guitar company, it actually
started as one of the first boutique electric-guitar
makers—it was among the first to
introduce neck-through-body 24-fret guitars
and heelless neck joints. Many respected artists
outside the metal community, including
studio great Carlos Alomar (David Bowie),
pop meister Neil Giraldo (Pat Benatar), and
jazz guitarist Robert Conti were proponents
of B.C. Rich guitars.
LEFT: An early photo of Bernardo’s Guitar Shop
located at 2716 Brooklyn Avenue in Los
Angeles.
RIGHT: Mal Stich with a custom B.C. Rich circa 1978.
Photo by Andy Caulfield
Where It All Began
B.C. Rich’s origin can be traced to
Bernardo’s Guitar Shop at 2716 Brooklyn
Avenue, in Los Angeles. In the mid ’50s,
Bernado Mason Rico purchased the
store from the Candelas guitar shop and
opened his namesake store. He didn’t
work on the guitars himself—he chose
to focus on day-to-day operations—but
instead hired luthiers from Paracho,
Mexico, which is widely regarded as
the guitar capital of that country. Rico
helped many of these luthiers gain residence
and naturalization as citizens of
the United States. Rico’s son Bernardo
“Bernie” Chavez Rico, an accomplished
flamenco guitarist,
did become involved
with the guitar making, however.
Father and son brought bodies in
from Mexico, had them painted and
assembled at the shop for mariachi, classical,
and folk musicians. By the early
’60s, folk music had become popular
and folk artists started bringing in their
acoustic steel-string guitars to the shop
for repairs. Word spread, and throngs of
musicians like Barry McGuire and David
Lindley started bringing in Martins and
Gibsons for work and daring modifications,
such as disassembling a Martin
D-18 and putting in a 12-string neck.
The folk boom led to the shop’s production
of steel-string acoustics, which
featured Brazilian rosewood back and
sides, Sitka spruce tops, and Honduran
mahogany necks with Gaboon ebony
fingerboards. Although these early guitars
were reportedly rated higher than
new Martins at the time, they had some
minor issues. Because they didn’t have
an adjustable truss rod, the guitars were
often brought in later to have the fretboard
removed and a truss rod installed.
They also had very thin spruce tops that
sounded nice but were known to crack
and move from 1/16" to 1/8" into the
soundhole if too much string tension
caused the neck to fold into the body.
These issues were quickly addressed
without question, and problem instruments
were repaired or replaced even
many years past the one-year warranty.
In 1968, Bernie made his first electric
solidbody using a Fender neck. This led
to his first attempts at guitar production
in the form of about ten Les Paul-shaped
guitars and basses modeled after the
Gibson EB-3. Around 1972, Bernie and
an employee named Bob Hall started
developing a model they called the Seagull
(which has no connection to the Godin
Guitars acoustic brand). It was the company’s
first production electric guitar, and it
came to market in 1974. Up to that time,
the store’s phone greeting was “Bernardo’s
Guitar Shop.” One day, Stich answered the
phone with, “B.C. Rich,” and some think
that’s the moment the company name
changed and it became a full-fledged guitar
manufacturer with a mission.
“B.C. Rich’s intention was to make
a production-line custom guitar with
high quality and craftsmanship that was
very expensive for the day,” says Stich.
“In 1977, they were $999 retail—and
you were paying more than retail if you
could actually
find one.”
Although, B.C. Rich was often
referred to as a custom shop at the time,
it wasn’t custom in the conventional
sense of the word. “The guitars were
handcrafted, but they were still production
guitars. People might request special
inlays or maybe Bartolini Hi-A pickups
instead of DiMarzios, but basically it
was a production-line guitar,” explains
Stich. The company had facilities in
both California and Tijuana, Mexico.
All the workers were from Mexico, and
both shops freely interchanged parts. For
the electric guitars, Bernie would send
wood, fretboards, frets, inlays, glues, and
other materials over to Mexico, and then
drive down once a month to pick up
the assembled guitars, which were then
painted and finally assembled in L.A.
The steel-string acoustics, however, were
made right there in L.A.
B.C. Rich luthier Juan Hernandez (left) shaping
a body with a knife similar to
the ones at right.
Photo by Andy Caulfield
Handmade—All the Way Down to the Tools
When Stich says early B.C. Riches were
handmade, he means it in the truest
sense of the phrase. He recalls that there
were no machines in sight inside the
shop—only band saws, belt sanders,
block planes, spoke shaves, files, and
special guitar knives that the luthiers
made themselves out of highly carbonized
metal. “The guys would literally go
out and buy a metal slab that was probably
a quarter inch thick, and they would
cut it, shape it, sharpen it, and make a
handle for it—usually out of mahogany.
People would walk in and go, ‘Where’s
your machinery?’ and we’d go, ‘Sittin’
right there,’ and point at a knife. Then
they’d go into the paint shop and guys
would be water-sanding, finishing coats,
and buffing by hand. When they cut the
blanks, the sides would be glued on and
wrapped with cord like in the old days,
when they made violins and wrapped
them with cords in France in the 1500s.
They would tap shims between the cord
and the wood to make it as tight as possible
for the glue joints, which were always
superb. The guitars would go through
a process of being marked out with a
pencil and a template of the shape of the
guitar—we had aluminum templates and
later plastic—and then they would do a
cutout on a band saw. From there, the
necks would be handcarved using what
I call a ‘Mexican guitar maker’s knife,’
and they just hacked the [expletive] out
of it. It would start out with a hammer
and a chisel—
bam, bam, bam—making
the neck. Then they would go to the
knife, and finally to a spoke shave. These
guys could knock out a neck in about 20
minutes.”
 Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford onstage with a B.C.
Rich Bich at the Long Beach Arena on July 12,
1978. Photo by Andy Caulfield |
Because necks were handcarved back
then, B.C. Rich could offer personalized
profiles. It was common to see big-name
rock stars sitting with the late master
luthier Juan Hernandez while he hacked
away at a neck blank with a knife and
spoke shave. Stich recalls that the guitar
would go back and forth between
Hernandez and the client, who would
feel it and maybe say, “Take off a little
more right here, a little more there,” until
they got it right.
After the body and neck were completed,
the last stop was the assembly
shop—where everything was hardwired.
“The parts—the Varitone, the preamp
circuitry, etc.—were made by hand,” says
Stich. “We would go to the electronics
store and buy all the parts we needed,
and they would cut up the PCB boards.
It was really labor intensive.”
Intricate Circuitry
Noted luthier Neal Moser, who had
developed a reputation as the go-to guy
for hot-rodding guitar electronics, joined
the company in 1974. Over the initial
dinner meeting at Bernie’s house, Moser
sketched out the circuitry and layout for
a new design on a piece of cardboard.
He soon went to work for B.C. Rich as
an independent contractor. His dinner-table
design—which consisted of master
volume and tone controls, a built-in
preamp, a 6-position Varitone, and coil
taps—was implemented on the production
Seagull guitar.
B.C. Rich’s electric offerings were
originally equipped with Guild pickups,
but the company later switched to
DiMarzios, which Stich says, “added a
whole different reality to the guitars.
The Guilds had this ’50s or ’60s sound,
whereas the DiMarzios had a new sound
to them. They also worked better with
Moser’s circuitry.”
Wilder and Wilder Shapes
B.C. Rich guitar bodies always pushed
the envelope of guitar design, and as the
years progressed, the shapes got even
more extreme. The Seagull’s toilet-seat-inspired
shape was daring for the time,
but fairly conservative in hindsight.
And though it was well received, the
protruding point on the upper body
was uncomfortable for some players
because it poked into your torso
at certain playing angles. This led to
the creation of the Eagle, which had a
more conventional Strat-like shape, but
with the Seagull’s treble-side cutaway.
Another version of the Seagull that jettisoned
the sharp point was also later
produced. In 1975, the company introduced
its first radically shaped guitar, the
Mockingbird, which was inspired by a
shape drawn by Johnny “Go Go” Kallas
and named by Moser.
In 1977, while Bernie was in Japan,
Moser went into the woodshop one
day and crafted the company’s edgiest
design to date—the 10-string Bich.
According to Stich, when Bernie
returned to the shop and saw the new
project, he got upset and yelled “You
guys don’t design guitars without me!”
The model’s name stems from a trip
Moser and his wife made to the county
fair. “They noticed some girls wearing
charms on their necklaces that read ‘Rich
Bitch.’ They agreed that would be an
ideal name,” recalls Stich. “Of course, the
‘T’ was dropped.”
This five-piece, koa-bodied 1979 Mockingbird
features an intonatable Leo Quan Badass bridge
and multiple knobs and toggles for the built-in
preamp and its phasing, tone, and series/parallel
operation options.
This gorgeously
quilted 1981 10-string
Bich features two
preamps controlled
by six knobs (Master
Volume, Master Tone,
neck-pickup volume,
a 6-position Varitone,
and Volume knobs for
both preamps) and six
toggles that govern
pickup selection
and series/parallel
operation, phasing,
and activation of the
preamps. The guitar
has unison strings
for the D and
G strings, and
octaves for the
B and high E.
That model led to the 6-string
Bich and the Son of a Rich, an
American-made economy version with a
bolt-on neck and bodies machine-made
by Wayne Charvel. Initially, there was
some concern that dealers would reject
the guitar based on its risqué name, but
after some dealers from Utah—the most
conservative state in the Union—gave it
the green light, the name stuck.
Introduced in 1981, the company’s
next guitar, the Warlock, featured a shape
inspired by the Bich—and it went on
to become one of the most iconic B.C.
Riches. The Widow, designed by Blackie
Lawless, and the Stealth, designed by
Mockingbird user Rick Derringer, followed
in 1983.
By that point, B.C. Rich had a
complete catalog of distinctive instruments,
and it wasn’t long before overseas
companies like Aria were creating
B.C. Rich knock-offs. Bernie went into
survival mode and flew to Japan with
Hiro Misawa to set up the B.C Rich NJ
series, which stood for “Nagoya, Japan,”
where they were made. “We knocked-off
ourselves, basically,” says Stich.
“The first time we went to Frankfurt
[Musikmesse musical instrument trade
show], we had really nice guitars and
people came up to us and said, ‘Hey,
that’s a copy of the Aria guitar.’ We
were, like, ‘You’re kidding, right?’”
The company’s first Japanese guitars
were labeled B.C. Rico and did not feature
the NJ series designation. Trouble
appeared soon after when Rico Reeds
(makers of saxophone and clarinet reeds)
sued B.C. Rich for patent infringement
on the name. “We were, like, ‘Wait a
minute! Rico is the guy’s
real name.’ But
instead of spending money on a big litigation
and lawsuits, we just [substituted] an
‘h’ at the end of the name,” recalls Stich.
Stich with a custom-finished Mockingbird (left),
and with future-star Lita Ford
playing a red-stained
Mockingbird in 1980 (right).
B.C. Rich continued to produce
more unique-looking guitars such as the
Ironbird, the Wave, and the Fat Bob,
which was shaped like a Harley-Davidson
motorcycle’s gas tank. However, to capitalize
on the resurgence of the Fender
Stratocaster’s popularity in the mid ’80s,
B.C. Rich introduced the ST series—a
straightforward double-cutaway that was
a noticeable departure from the company’s
legacy of flashy shapes.
 Paul Stanley of Kiss with Bernie Rico Sr. at a promotional
event at Los Angeles radio station KMET in the
early ’80s. Photo by Andy Caulfield |
The Fame Game
The first pivotal point in B.C. Rich’s rise
to widespread recognition came in 1976,
when sound engineer Bob “Nite Bob”
Czaykowski picked up a maple-bodied
Mockingbird—the first one ever made—for Aerosmith guitarist Joe
Perry. “All of a sudden, B.C. Rich was
on the map,” says Stich. “In my opinion,
if it wasn’t for Nite Bob, B.C. Rich
would have been another flash-in-the-pan
guitar company.”
The wild shapes of B.C. Rich guitars
also attracted the attention of the producers
of
This Is Spinal Tap. Stich put some
guitars together for the production, and
in so doing, unwittingly became responsible
for adding a new phrase to popular
music’s cultural lexicon. “There was a
meeting in my office to loan the guitars
and basses. I was playing with a volume
knob Larry DiMarzio gave me that went
to 11. I showed it to them and explained
why it went to 11.” The producers used it
in one of the movie’s classic scenes, and the
idiom soon became immortalized in the
vernacular of guitarists and rock fans the
world over.
The Changing of the Guard
In the mid 1980s, B.C. Rich saw major
changes that would send the company
in a new direction. Stich left in ’84 and
Moser left in ’85. In ’87, Bernie entered
into a marketing agreement with Randy
Waltuch’s Class Axe, allowing them to
market and distribute Rave, Platinum,
and NJ Series guitars. A year later, Bernie
licensed the Rave and Platinum names
to Class Axe, which essentially took over
importing, marketing, and distribution of
the foreign-made lines. Soon after, complete
control was turned over to Class
Axe and B.C. Rich’s custom shop was
disbanded. Class Axe licensed the name
B.C. Rich in 1989.
During this period, quality control
nosedived and the B.C. Rich name suffered.
Bernie was out of the company picture
for a few years, and during that time
he produced Mason Bernard guitars—
handmade acoustic-electrics and Strat-shaped
electrics. In 1993, Bernie regained
ownership of B.C. Rich and made a
concerted effort to restore the company’s
name. Sadly, on December 3, 1999, he
passed away from a sudden heart attack.
Subsequently, the company went to his
son Bernie Jr., who turned over control
to the Hanser Music Group in 2001 and
began making guitars under the Rico Jr.
name. However, he is involved with some
current B.C. Rich custom-shop guitars.
As part of its recently revamped custom
operation, B.C. Rich also brought famed
builder Grover Jackson aboard to work on
the Gunslinger Handcrafted series. The
company continues to evolve and release
visually striking designs that, like its legacy
designs, appeal to both younger metal players
and elder statesman of the genre like
Slayer’s Kerry King. Its Pro X Bich model
was voted Best of NAMM in the electric
guitar category at NAMM 2011.
Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx with his B.C. Rich Warlock—which is outfi tted with two splittable
P-style pickups, a multitude of switching options, and a reverse headstock—at a 1983
photo
shoot in Hollywood. Photo by Andy Caulfield