The ESP Guitar Company

Throughout the history of popular music, there have been two classes of great musicians: those who gain worldwide fame among the general public, and those who may not be as well known, but hold the tremendous respect of a much tougher audience: other musicians. Ronny Drayton, who was one of the very earliest endorsees of ESP shortly after we opened up our first US headquarters in New York City, is in that second group. Ask any serious musician who has been around for awhile in the studios and stages around New York, and they all say the same thing… Ronny Drayton is a monster player who should be recognized among the best that ever were.

Getting Started
Ronny’s history reads like a fairy tale of the music scene around his hometown of South Jamaica, Queens. “In my neighborhood, it was like a pinnacle for jazz. Billie Holiday lived two blocks away. There would be jams in Count Basie’s backyard. They’d see us little kids looking over the fence, and he would call his butler over and tell him to let us in to watch.”

By the time he was in high school, the music scene had changed. “I was at John Bowne High School in Flushing, Queens,” he recalls, “and everyone that had a guitar was salivating for a chance to see Hendrix, to see Clapton. There was a band called The Exciters who lived in a house on my block, and their house was where everyone went when they came through town. Jimi was there. Buddy Miles Express. Little Richard. Wilson Picket. Ike & Tina Turner. Otis Redding. All of them were friends with The Exciters.”

Meanwhile, the local clubs were booking the early incarnations of hard rock bands that were popping up in the mid-1970s. “You go out to the clubs on Main Street in Flushing, New York, and every night there would be bands like Mountain, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, and AC/DC,” he says.

Ronny credits his grandmother, Julia Drayton, for giving him what he needed to progress as a musician, and as a man. “She lived to be almost 100 years old,” he says. “She only went to school through sixth grade. She took over taking care of me, and said ‘I’m going to create the environment for you to play music.’”

Due to civil rights laws that tried to prevent segregation by bussing children of different racial groups to integrated schools, Ronny found himself immersed in a multitude of influences. “Growing up in Queens, we played in houses,” he says. “With all the racial things going on, you had white kids coming in from The Bronx and Manhattan and Long Island. We were all figuring out how to get sounds. We’d take records and listen to them on Victrolas, slowing the records down to figure out the guitar parts.”

Growing Up
But Ronny soon had tougher decisions to make than how to cop a lick from the latest guitar heroes of the day. “As soon as I finished high school, I was either going to Vietnam or going to play music. I was a hard headed kid and enrolled for the draft, but my number came up too high, so instead I started playing with R&B and soul bands like the Persuaders and the Chambers Brothers.”

Ronny’s reputation grew quickly, and he soon found himself in demand as a session and touring guitarist. It was in that era that he first connected with ESP during a tour of Japan with Nona Hendryx.

Meeting ESP
“I got my very first ESP on a Nona Hendryx tour. I was sitting in a boardroom in Shibuya-ku with all the ESP head guys, and I really was honored to be there as a gaijin. I saw some of the guitars they were making, including the original model they were doing for George Lynch. I thought, ‘Why is George using these headstocks, these kamikaze pilots?’ Then I saw George play in Japan with this rig. These guitars were screaming through his Soldano. Get the fuck outta here! I said, ‘I’m convinced.’”

The timing couldn’t have been better for Ronny, since ESP had recently opened their first US headquarters near the legendary 48th Street row of music gear stores in New York.

“I think I got connected with Matt (Masciandaro, ESP CEO) via Toshi in Japan. Toshi said, ‘Ronny-san, Matt’s a nice guy, an honorable person.’ I’d been back and forth to Japan something like 30 times on tours. I liked it so much there, I considered staying. So Toshi connected me to Matt, and I started coming over to the ESP office on 42nd Street. My first ESP was one of the original Navigator Series guitars. One the techs there did a modification. He modded the back pickup so that there was more output like a humbucker. That did it for me. I was hooked on ESP from then on.”

It’s at this point in Ronny’s tale that his son Donovan first enters the picture.

“I’ve now known Matt for 25 years or more. We used to bring Donovan in to the ESP shop, and he’d be working on guitars. I made the relationships with ESP in Japan while playing with Nona Hendrix. Matt has always been the same way with me from day one. He tells me the truth, I tell him the truth. ‘What’s going on?’ he asks me. 'How can I help?' The guy never changes.

“So I get the guitars from ESP. Donovan is there in the shop, crawling all over the place. The tech does this thing with the soldering gun and the wires, and he shows Donovan. Donovan starts doing exactly as the tech is doing, taking his hand. Everybody started cracking up. My friendship with Matt and ESP was solidified that day.”

When you’re in a situation where you can pick and choose any guitar brand to play, why did you turn to a small and relatively unknown company like ESP was back in the ‘80s?

“To be honest, ESP got their reputation for greatness from a lack of attention to detail from other manufacturers of that era,” he says. “The Japanese companies may have started by copying the traditional look at styles of the older guitar makers, but modern players were looking for new things, like HSS pickup setups, better feeling neck radius, and so on. ESP jumped on that shit way before anyone.”

What makes ESP continue to be thought of as the ultimate player’s guitar?


“ESP was always able to roll through changes and come out ahead. You went from the shred thing of the ‘80s to the music that music coming out of Seattle. Cobain, Alice in Chains. And then, the detuning trends. 7-string guitars, tuning down to B or whatever. ESP had already made its mark by increasing the sonic possibilities with the very precise Japanese designs. Now they were creating instruments that sonically could reproduce things in the artists’ heads. The detail is unbelievable, with guitars that matched woods, pickups, wiring, and everything else. Binding, neck radius, color combinations. Neck-through-body or bolt-on. Thinking about how to best make the vibrations more sympathetic throughout the guitar. Whoever at ESP is thinking about this, they figured this out.”

Life’s Challenges
In 2007, Ronny’s life took a turn that no one could have foreseen. His beloved son Donovan was arrested for a serious crime that Ronny vehemently denies was committed. It took six full years of fighting the legal system to finally have his son exonerated on all but one minor charge in July of 2013. Donovan had been imprisoned the entire time, and it wasn’t easy on Ronny.

To help fight the charges and raise money for Donovan’s legal defense, Ronny enlisted the help of his friends. Several successful concerts were held that featured artists and bands like Living Colour, 24-7 Spyz, Reverend Kim Lesley, Nona Hendryx, Burnt Sugar, DJ Afrika Bambaataa, The Sugarhill Gang, and Ronny himself.

Understandably, he’s still angry at the environment that allowed his son’s incarceration to happen in the first place. “This system is not made to keep us unified,” he says. “The system is made to separate us. The only way to control the masses is with fear. Why would we want to perpetuate a fraud like that? We get older and we’re supposed to slow down a bit, but I feel like I’m moving faster. The young mind has no sense of autonomy. Now we put them through a grueling process. If you don’t have a tough shell, you’re done.

“Since the court battle is over, I had to take about a year to just wind down. I’d been out touring since 2011. Now I’m living in Orange Country in upstate New York. I’m focusing on writing, and have set up a room in my house. After all these years playing for everyone else, I’m finally doing a record on my own. I have a strict regimen with playing and training. I also play in a corporate band, which is great because it pays the bills and gives me the freedom to work.”

Today, Ronny Drayton seems like a man on a mission.

“I know that whatever music I’m going to do, it’s going to have a positive message about some type of change. Though everything, I’ve found a different type of peace. I’ve fought enough wars for ten people. I would do that for any kid, black or white, who’s been wrongly accused. I will put that message out for that kid.”