Dr. Epiphone Does It All

Will Jones (better known as Dr. Epiphone) is a man with a commitment to doing what he loves. In black cargo pants and a lab coat, Jones has given talks and performances on Epiphone guitars in 40 countries. Epiphone has been making guitars since 1928, but has operated as a brand within the Gibson umbrella since 1957.

Jones isn't "just selling guitars" either—Jones has played all over the world, including with the band Twisted Sister. Though recently he's been traveling less, Jones still loves his work and has a plethora of stories to tell. The root of that love is that he’s selling something he believes in. “If I get excited about something,” he explains, “it’s my job to impart that excitement.” Jones’ enthusiasm spans across other hobbies and interests as well: we spoke about how he's done a little bit of everything he loves.

AT EPIPHONE

Jones has done the “Dr. Epiphone” act in places like Argentina, Russia, Japan, Spain, The Philippines, seeing a massive variety of cultures and their relationships with music. But, he says, “there's not a lot of difference” in what they look for in a guitar. He remembers a particular event in Germany, shortly after their unification, called Music Mecca. It was a massive, multi-level convention center all made of concrete—and utterly full of people, dozens of them bouncing riffs off of the walls. Imagine an enormous, stone Guitar Center. 

It’s experiences like these that contribute to the constant novelty in Jones’ work. “It’s been a pretty cool job, and it’s always changing into something else,” he says. While he thinks that his more local work might seem “mundane to most people,” he enjoys interacting with all of the dealers and consumers. It’s also given him some time to look back. He notes that “it’s easier to evaluate all of these experiences when [he’s] not living in the middle of it.”

Since Covid, Jones has been working more locally—managing different accounts with dealers as well as other commercial activities. He doesn't mind at all. In fact, Jones has found it a bit of a relief to be out of the airports for a little while. He notes that to go somewhere like Australia—where he's been seven times—it's a full 32-hour journey with two or three layovers. 

But through the network he's built at Epiphone, Jones has had the opportunities like filling in for D. Snyder of Twisted Sister more than once. “The first time I was terrible,” he laughs. “The second time I was much better.” He enjoyed performing with the band, and noted that the members were all so built that they didn't even need security—they did it themselves.

Jones also was given the opportunity to design and brand his own “Dr. Epiphone” line of guitars, which were kept from online retailers and distributed only to independent music stores. He sees independent stores as “fixtures of the community”—places where one might go for fun and chat with the owners “like a barbershop.” Selling instruments is a relationship based industry, and Jones makes a point to “support dealers who have the best chance of helping customers find their new favorite guitar.”

The guitar, he says, is a dark wine red, maple SG inspired by the original 1952 Les Paul. Jones has a passion for the craft of guitars themselves. “It's one of the most subjective industries you could probably think of,” he notes. “And still labor intensive. People are taking wood and turning it into a work of art… but it has to be precise, so it sounds great too.” Jones draws pride from that fact that, even today, guitars can't be built entirely with machines. There's a sense of history woven into each one. “It's hard to invent a new solid body guitar,” he muses.

DO EVERYTHING

Designing his own guitars was a challenge Jones happily took on. He's always been someone who throws himself into experiences. In the early 90s, he was a musician working at the Earnest Tubb Record Shop. From there, he “accidentally got record deals” and met a number of interesting people, including Rhonda Vincent, Jimmy Davis, and Willie Nelson. “I rode Willie Nelson's bus and I survived,” he half-jokes. “No brain damage!”

He also ended up living with none other than Jamey Johnson from 2006-2008, where they became good friends. Johnson, he says, has been playing the same Epiphone guitar since age 19, and Jones maintains it. They've remained close, and Jones told me, “He really talks like that and he really sounds like that.”

He doesn't only network with interesting people—Jones himself is a man who does everything. He’s had television shows (including the sketch comedy show with Thong Girl’s Glen Weiss), a radio show, a jazz act, runs a cat rescue, and has a brown belt in karate. He speaks multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and French. He can read Mandarin, Korean, and Russian. 

Despite his credentials as an incredibly interesting and worldly person, Jones remains humble. “My family couldn't care less,” he laughs. He feels he’ll never be done taking in new experiences and learning new things. “There’s still so many things that I don't know and you don't know,” he says, “and together we still don't know anything.”