05.07 Josh Peromsik of JMP Guitars

By Alex Kantarelis

Worcester has a little known musical secret. It’s not a hot new band, or an amazing live venue ~ it’s not a world class recording studio or vintage record store (although we have all those, too). In fact, it’s so unique that it is in a category all by itself. So what is this secret? JMP Guitars.

Worcester native Josh Peromsik has been customizing and building his own guitars since 1995. He runs JMP Guitars, a company based around customizing, developing, and building guitars, and is quite simply a guitar fanatic. Through JMP he can build you a guitar tailor-made for your own personal style and perfect for the kind of music you play. Or he will modify a guitar you already have so you can get the most out of your instrument. His attention to detail and love for the instrument is astonishing and evident in every single guitar he’s worked on over the years.

Peromisik learned the craft when he was a teenager working as a guitar tech. He started putting guitars together with whatever he’d find lying around the shop. “I worked at a music store, and had access to all the junk, and I could literally slap things together,” he said. The hobby quickly turned into a lot more, and JMP Guitars was born.

The entire company and its philosophy are based on Peromsik’s own desire to bring the world better guitars. “Basically a dissatisfaction with guitars is what inspired everything,” he explained. To Peromsik, tone is paramount. “When you have a guitar that has real tone it can actually improve a guitarist’s playing,” he said. “If you have one guitar that just has the variation in tone that you need, and the sound that you want, then that is all you need,” he added.

Making a guitar sound amazing is fine, but JMP Guitars doesn’t stop there. They want the guitar to look just as amazing as it sounds. Peromsik works closely with local artists (see this month’s interview with artist Michael McMenemy in the Culture section) to create an absolute work of art out of every guitar he makes. JMP guitars have custom paint jobs, dragon inlays, and even the occasional portrait. Anything a customer wants, he or she can get. This approach, combining technical excellence with true artistic sensibilities, is just another feature that sets JMP apart from everyone else.

When it comes to shielding, wiring, intonation, capacitors, and other technical jargon that the average guitarist may know very little about, have no fear ~ Peromsik knows it all. Strip apart a guitar and watch this wizard work. His ultimate goal is to maximize the instrument by bringing forth the potential of every guitar’s ability. In other words, he makes every guitar he touches perfect. Having a guitar customized by JMP is like taking a totally average car and turning it into a Rolls Royce inside.

If you want to turn your guitar into an absolute masterpiece, have JMP Guitars modify it for you. Or, if you’re looking for something totally new, maybe a guitar that with the flip of a switch can sound like 10 different guitars, have JMP build you a custom guitar. They’ll make you a instrument that sounds great, looks great, and just simply is great.