Turning Famous Guitar Strings into Wearable Band Merch | S5 E10
Kristie Peterson, Artist Liaison at Wear Your Music, joins Earth Care for episode 10 of the Sustainability in the Live Music Industry Series.
Wear Your Music is a sustainable music merchandise company that specializes in upcycling donated guitar strings into wearable jewelry. They strive to help green the music industry, connect fans to their favourite musicians and raise money for charities around the globe.
President and Designer Hannah Garrison, began in her NYC island studio where she would gather refuse left by musicians and create art. 20 years later, Wear Your Music has partnered with mega-stars such as Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Bonnie Raitt and more to transform their used guitar strings into one-of-a-kind memorabilia.
Additionally, each artist that donates their strings chooses a charity of their choice for the proceeds to support. They’re a values driven company that actively supports women, community and family.
In this episode, Kristie Peterson discusses the backstory of how Wear Your Music began diverting guitar strings from the landfill for a cause. We also chat about the artists they’ve worked with, the process of creating wearable jewelry, and charitable donations. Kristie emphasizes the power of creativity in sustainability and shares a pretty neat personal concert experience that was connected to a donated guitar string.
Transcript:
Sarah Christie
Kristie Peterson from Wear Your Music, thank you so much for joining Earth Care and being a part of our sustainability in the live music industry series. How are you doing?
Kristie Peterson
Great, thanks for having me.
Sarah Christie
Thank you for being here. This is such a cool concept for anyone who's just coming across Wear Your Music. Can you give a little bit of a backstory on the business?
Kristie Peterson
Yeah, it all started about 2004. Our president and founder, my boss, was hanging out with friends, just living her life and a lot of them were musicians. And she started to notice that as they changed their guitar strings, they would just get thrown away. And she said, huh, what can I do with that? So she started messing around with them and creating. And basically, ended up making these bracelets, you know, at first just by hand and they became popular with her friends. And she continued to just make them as she came across the strings and hand them out and then went off and you know, just did other things. Couple years later, she saw an ad in Craigslist and somebody there was saying, Hey, is anybody out there doing anything interesting with guitar strings? And it brought it all back. So she contacted him.
They got together, formed Wear Your Music, and this was about 2006, and there you go. And then it just took off and running.
Sarah Christie
Wow, this is a silly question, but I don't play guitar. I pretend to pick it up and know what I'm doing, but I don't. How often would an artist be, is it every time, after a concert, are they changing guitar strings or whenever they break? Like, what is that turnaround?
Kristie Peterson
All of it. So what happens is this is what I've learned because I also don't play guitar. We receive all kinds of guitar strings. Some of them are pristine. They look like they haven't been played at all. Those folks change them all the time. I've talked to people that say they change them after every three shows. We also get strings that are quite grubby, but clearly have been very well played and don't get changed hardly at all. So I think it really is a personal preference.
Sarah Christie
Oh, those ones would tell a story. You know how you run into those people who have converses that are taped together. You know, it's the, there's, there's a, it's almost like a badge of honor, the story that they would tell. So I mean, the roster you see on your website is, goes on for days. You know, who have you worked with so far? Who's donated their guitar strings?
Kristie Peterson
Oh gosh, I don't even know where to start. Let's see, we have all three members that play strings in Metallica, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Robert Trujillo. We have people as diverse as we have Joan Jett, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez, Tommy Emanuel, who just won a Grammy at the Grammy Awards. And let's see, we have country artists.
Even things like Duran Duran, we get people saying, hey, we didn't know Simon Le Bon played the guitar. He does. So it's really, I'm actually quite impressed. I've only been here a few years and it's just, I'm just thrilled.
Sarah Christie
So what is the process? You get the guitar string and then what does it have to go through in order to become this wearable jewelry?
Kristie Peterson
Well, we get them in from the artists themselves. Usually their techs or their management sends them in. We are very careful about tagging them, cleaning them, setting them aside, getting them ready for production. Then we wait and each piece is custom made. So as the orders come in, then our production takes over. But at no time are the strings ever mixed up. You're only allowed to open one artist at a time.
Close that box, put it away before you get out the next one. Yes.
Sarah Christie
I'm recording from Canada, I saw there was Avril Lavigne on the website as well.
Kristie Peterson
She is quite elusive. We have been out of stock, but we did have her for a while. And I think I sold her last piece about a year ago. Lost track with her management. So Avril, if you're out there, we would love to restock your strings because I actually continually get requests for her.
Sarah Christie
Okay, so is that a thing fans can write in and request for their favourite artists as well?
Kristie Peterson
Yes. On our website, there is a place down, I think at the bottom of the homepage, and it says, request a musician, and you go and just fill out the form. And then I'm the one that goes and tries to find the people to get them to donate.
Sarah Christie
Wow, okay. Now, what do you wish because this whole process is diverting waste from a landfill, right? These guitar strings would just end up in a landfill. Otherwise, if they weren't being upcycled into jewelry, what do you wish more people understood about the sustainable growing
Kristie Peterson
Oh, wow. I guess that there really are no limits if you just use your creativity.
Sarah Christie
It's so true. It’s funny because I've seen online on the Kijiji Craigslist, like you mentioned, people selling tissue paper or a water bottle that was touched by an artist, which I guess if you take a step back, it is a form of upcycling or diverting from a landfill. But then this is such a cool concept. So when you're reaching out and connecting with these artists, what kind of feedback are you getting? Is it, you know, being embraced or is it still kind of a hard sell?
Kristie Peterson
Again, it really depends on the artist, you know, and some of them are definitely easier than others. When I reached out to people last year, like Lindsay Buckingham's people were awesome. I said, hey, you know, I'm from Where Your Music, this is what we do, we ask for donated guitar strings, you choose a charity, we make them into memorabilia, we sell them to fans, and then, you know, we go from there. So the management said, let me check. Literally, it was like two days later, Lindsay wants in, he wants to do this. And it was like, wow, I wish everybody was that easy. And then we got the ball rolling. Other folks, it's a little more coaxing. Some of it, it's just hard finding the contacts. Like I said, Avril Lavigne, I cannot find her new contact information. What happens to is a lot of the artists, they change managers frequently. So you're always, you know, trying to keep up with it.
Sarah Christie
Now you mentioned that the artist gets to pick a charity that money goes to when they, okay, so how does that work?
Kristie Peterson
Yes.
It's up to them. So we right now have over 120 charities that our artists have chosen. And like I said, we sell the memorabilia at the end of the year. We take the profits and then we divvy them out to the charities. So really we've got everything. We have artists like Metallica, Dierks Bentley, Melissa Etheridge that have their own foundations.
Sarah Christie
That's just incredible.
Kristie Peterson
So the profits go to their foundations and they decide how to distribute them. Then we have other artists that work with environmental groups, human resources type industries. We have health, mental health, animal welfare. I mean, you name it, it really, it's a wide span.
Sarah Christie
It really is so incredible, the whole business structure, going through your website and reading through what you've all put in place over there. Once you start really digging into sustainability, you'll quickly learn that it goes beyond environmental, right? It's all encompassed. So tell me about some of the company values beyond diverting waste from a landfill.
Kristie Peterson
You've hit the main one. It's keeping all of this metal out of landfills, right? But then the next level is we also value community and we're trying to connect fans to artists, to their charities, back to fans. And we just look at as real music is the one language that's universal across everything. Then our other thing is charity and philanthropy, showing what are the ways that we can support each other. So there's direct giving. But then there's also raising awareness about just the diversity that's out there with the charities. That's what I found because we have some big name charities, but then in looking, we've got a lot of smaller one, too. So just bringing that awareness out there and letting people get involved.
Sarah Christie
Now I'm sitting in Canada, I'm in Toronto. Do you ship to Canadian cities as well? Okay. Incredible. Now I have to ask, because you said music is universal. Is there a concert moment for you that stands out? Not even about the guitar, just simply about music.
Kristie Peterson
Well, recently, sort of like that, I feel very fortunate that I was able to go to the last Queen show and saw Brian May. Well, as we speak, his tech has collected those strings, and hopefully they will end up here in the studio quite soon. So the idea of it's like, I saw that string being played. And before you know it, it's going to be here and I'll actually get to touch it.
Sarah Christie
Wow.
Kristie Peterson
And then it goes into the memorabilia and we sell it for fans. I won't keep it. But the idea, as I was watching him play, I knew it's like, I am gonna have that string as soon as it gets here.
Sarah Christie
Yeah, that's quite spectacular. Everything about Where Your Music Truly Is, and it's such a treat to have you joining Earth Care to spotlight the incredible work that Where Your Music Is doing to divert waste and bring fans closer to music, because as you said, it connects with every single person. So thank you so much for sharing your time with Earth Care.
Kristie Peterson
Oh, thank you so much for asking and having me.
FINISHED.
