quired the company, most of our products were moving through third-party distribu- tors in the U.S. and Canada,” Burger said. “With 100 years of experience distributing in the U.S., it just didn’t make sense for us to rely on outside distributors, but we waited to make the change until our new products were ready.” Reclaiming its Identity When Burger came on board in 2019, shortly after Imhoff purchased the company, the vision for Hanser included entirely new products and a fresh direction. The journey hasn’t been without its challenges. COVID-19 forced a hard pause on much of Kustom’s work, and navigating shipping disruptions while remaining entirely self-funded since 2019 added extra pressure. But through it all, development continued. “Since 2020, we’ve been steadily build- ing the new lines,” Burger explained. “At the heart of it, we want to honor Kustom’s history while pushing it forward.” The new Kustom line is focused squarely on guitar and bass players, offering products that are both accessible and affordable without compromising on performance. “Sound-wise, we compete with anything out there,” Burger said. “We have decades of experience because we’ve built products for some of the companies we’d be compet- ing with. At the same time, we’re making sure it says ‘Kustom’ on it. We’re giving players the features they want at a better price than most of the competition. We’re no longer part of a larger company with dozens of brands, instead we’re concentrating on this for guitar players and bass players, and that’s what our engineering crew has always done best.” For retailers, stocking Kustom products comes down to one word: margin. “We’ve been around this long enough that we know what other companies that are doing comparable products to ours are offering, as far as margins, especially to in- dies, but even to the large retailers,” Burger said. “They all have deals with a lot of the large retailers worldwide because they have a lot of other products in those stores as well. We’re offering a much better margin on the same product that, in a lot of cases, is better quality.” Looking Ahead Building on that momentum, Kustom’s cur- rent product roadmap is designed to rees- tablish the brand’s credibility before fully reintroducing its visual identity. “All of our current work with modeling
amplifiers for electric guitar and bass is fo- cused on establishing that Kustom can cre- ate high-quality products with features that players actually want,” Burger said. “We also have some non-digital acoustic amps that reflect a long-standing strength of the Kustom brand, along with high-powered bass heads that perform exceptionally well.” Looking ahead, Burger said he sees Kustom’s next evolution having a strong visual heritage. “By the end of 2026, we hope to release either these exact products or something very similar technologically, but in a format that’s unmistakably Kustom,” he explained. “We’re talking about the classic tuck-and-roll design
— the padded vinyl or Naugahyde styling you see on vintage P.A.s and amplifiers, the kind of look you associate with bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival.” Burger said the company aims to establish trust through sound, features and reliability. Then, bring the history forward in a way that feels authentic rather than nostalgic. “Once the technology is established and players respect what we’re doing, what fol- lows is that same innovation wrapped in an old-school look,” he said. “That’s where we really start leaning into the heritage and reminding people what Kustom has always stood for.” MI
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