Today's Guest: Stuart McCallum of McCallum Bagpipes in Kilmarnock, Scotland
Today's Host: John Bentley
January 2008
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Stuart McCallum Transcript Page
Stuart McCallum Expert PageANNOUNCER: Welcome to the VTalk Radio Business Spotlight sponsored by Henderson Imports. Henderson of Northern Michigan, supplier of bagpipes, piping supplies, pipe band and percussion and Highland wear. Henderson can supply the full range of products made by McCallum Bagpipes. Today's guest is Stuart McCallum of McCallum Bagpipes joining John Bentley in the studio via the phone.
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Business Spotlight we have Stuart McCallum from Stuart McCallum Bagpipes also joining us today in the conversation is Rory Grossart and they are of Kilmarnock, Scotland. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Business Spotlight this morning...this afternoon I guess for you, Stuart.
STUART: Thank you. Yes, it's good to be here.
JOHN: Yes, well let's...why don't you first introduce yourself and explain what you do at McCallum Bagpipes.
STUART: Sure. I'm Stuart McCallum. I'm the managing director of McCallum Bagpipes in Scotland. My main role in the company is really related to the manufacturing side of the business. I mean I look after all the designs for the production and basically all the production parts that go through the factory. I'm responsible for all that.
JOHN: Now are you a piper yourself?
STUART: Yes, and the vast majority of the guys here are pipers, with a few exceptions. We have, for example, the Stephen Kilbride. He's a pretty well-known drummer. He's here 'cause we also supply a drumming service, and we have a few other people who are not pipers, but their main role in the company is to look after the likes of the Highland dress and things.
JOHN: Sure. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the range of products made at McCallum Bagpipes.
STUART: Sure. We've got a huge wide range of products. The main concern of the business is the bagpipes and pipe chanters. We also do a full range of practice chanters and accessories. And I mean accessories there's a lot more pipes and different bits and pieces that we do. We also do a full range of smallpipes, and we also manufacture our own drone reeds [MG Drone Reeds], and almost everything is manufactured on site. We really believe in trying to manufacturer things in house; it just makes you in control of things much more then, if you can do that. But we'll say we've got new products as well. We've got a new and solo chanter we've done along with Willie McCallum and would fairly recently we've got our own drone reeds. And we're also the manufacturer of the Fred Morrison Reel Pipe range, which is a range of Scottish smallpipes and also a Scottish reel pipes.
JOHN: You guys cover a lot of ground over there.
STUART: We sure do. I mean the company, I mean it's not a huge company, probably the factory is about 4,000 sq. ft. and I think we've got something like 22 employees, but we run on two shifts, day and night, but yeah, it's coming on all the time. It's coming on all the time.
JOHN: Well, why don't you give us a little background about McCallum Bagpipes. You're relatively new, correct?
STUART: Well, the company has been going 10 years this year, but I mean, it's came a long way from the early days when we started off actually from a portable building that my father built and a couple of garden sheds, and it started really as a hobby, and I mean, how it came about was I'm an engineer by trade. I worked in a local company doing engineering, and I specialized in the CNC machines, which is the computerized turning machines and milling machines. So that was my background, but I did do a lot of work for companies such as Rolls-Royce, but it's been a lot of precision engineering and I've got a business partner, Kenny MacLeod. Kenny's role in the company is really more sales oriented, but Kenny's background, he's been involved in selling bagpipes since the early 1980s it must have been. He used to work for a company which is still going strong -Kintail- and he worked in there for maybe 6 maybe 8 years before setting up his own company, MacLeod Highland and Supplies. So Kenny has got real strong connections with bagpipe selling and then later on, Kenny sold up of his business; and I think it was about 1995, 94, 95. He sold up and moved to California, where he was selling bagpipes and teaching bagpipes. So it really came by chance. Kenny knew I was an engineer, and we used to keep in contact, because we did play at one time in the same pipe band, and he phoned me one day to see if I could help him make some practice chanter mouthpieces he was looking to get, so myself being an engineer - no problem. I made him up some mouthpieces and I really started from there, and I started just by making up the same mouthpieces, then I went from there onto making some practice chanters, and then before long I started making pipes. I wasn't taught by anyone; I just looked at making pipes, I just looked at it all with, you know, with an engineer's point of view.
JOHN: Sure.
STUART: You know I just looked at every single component and just broke it down that way, and to be honest with you, I've never looked back.
JOHN: Yeah, great. Now even though you're only ten years old, to what do you attribute the success of McCallum Bagpipes?
STUART: I think a lot of the success of the company is we've got a good blend of modern technology, but we still got a lot of traditional methods. You know, we've invested very heavily on some computerized machinery, which allows us to produce the components much quicker and far more consistently. And a few other things that we do to our product on the pipes, you know, we supply our pipes standard with a nickel and imitation mouthpiece. You know, we were the first guys to offer beaded nickel ferrules and ring caps as standard. We would fit slides onto the pipes as standard, and we were the first guys to offer a 2 year written warranty with our pipes. It was nice to include all that and with the package of pipes. The reason we've been able to do that is just really making sure our production is spot on and just making sure we can keep the place competitive in the market place.
JOHN: Now, you offer quite a few different styles of pipes and decorations. What are some of the special or unique designs and features you offer?
STUART: Sure. Conventional pipes tend to be either fitted up with like imitation ivory, but there's far much more materials out there that we do...so we've done pipes...we can make them with the imitation horn, for instance, and there's an African hardwood Mopani that we use also. Most pipes tend to be nickel mounted, but we also can do a gold-mounted ferrules and things and more recently brought out a new one which has got an antique finish on there. The whole range of pipes has really developed from probably started with half a dozen more models and we're probably got maybe 20 models, and even with the 20 models of pipes, there's so many different variations of the particular models. One thing we do have at the company, we do our own engraving of the pipes ourselves, in house. I do all the programs for the CNC machines so we can personalize people's pipes. For instance, I've done a lot of pipes for, for instance, fire departments, you know, when they wanted their own badge and things onto the ferrules, and I've also done the police logos and things onto practice chanters. So, it's because we do it in house; it just makes it very, very flexible. I get people with a request for a birthday present- happy 21st birthday, you know- and I can engrave onto ferrules and things, so that makes it very unique and personalized.
JOHN: Now Stuart, I understand that that there's a number of great players using your pipes. Can you name some of those people and maybe they've been collaborating with McCallum?
STUART: Sure. We've got a lot of top solo guys. For instance those guys like Willie McCallum, Bruce Gandy, Gordon Walker, Iain Speirs, Donald MacPhee, or Gordon McCready, Fred Morrison, I could go on all day; there's tons of top pipers using our product. There's also good bands that use our chanters and things, for instance, my own band, I play in the Strathclyde Police Band, they use our product with 78th Fraser Highlanders, Clan Gregor, LA Scots, the 78th Halifax Citadel, Alberta Australian Highlanders, New Zealand Police - I could go on all day.
JOHN: Sounds like it.
STUART: There's more Grade 1 pipe bands using McCallum chanters than any other make on the market. And in Grade 1 finals at the World Pipe Band Championships there were more bands using McCallum than any other chanter on the market. So we really, really came on in short space of time.
JOHN: Yeah, it sounds great. Now we have also sitting next to you is Rory Grossart and, apparently, he makes drone reeds. Why don't you bring Rory into the conversation here, and then he can tell us a little bit about his new reeds and their benefits.
STUART: Sure, I'll put you on to Rory.
RORY: Hello.
JOHN: Hello, Rory, how you doing today?
RORY: I'm very well, thank you, John.
JOHN: Thanks for joining us on VTalk Radio's Business Spotlight today. Now, I understand that you make some MG Drone Reeds. Can you tell us a little bit about your new reeds and their benefits?
RORY: Yeah, sure. MG Drone Reeds have a composite materials used for the construction of the body. One of the benefits of this material is that the machined surfaces, to a degree, moisture absorbent, so it's a bit like cane and naturally absorbs some moisture. Also, the pitch adjuster screws are made of an alloy. Now, the idea behind this alloy was as we all know, moisture condenses on the coldest part of any surface, and so with the alloy pitch adjusters, that will always remain the coldest part of the reed, so it will encourage moisture to condense there. Now the standard bass has a carbon fiber tongue; that gives them a nice rich tone and that's complemented by the plastic tongue tenors.
JOHN: What would you do to care for these drone reeds?
RORY: To care for them?
JOHN: Yeah.
RORY: Caring for the drone reeds, the reeds from the dealers are preset so we would hope that there's this very little tweaking required; however, some settlement can occur as with any drone reed, including cane. Bridle movement should be very, very small and it should be remembered that with any bridle movement would be an associated change in pitch, so compensation may be required with the pitch adjusters and/or the position of insertion in the drone. The rest I suppose is just common sense and just take care when handling the reeds, especially when reinserting them into the stocks. There's risk that the reed tongue can catch on the edge of the stock and the tenor tongues are made of a very soft material, which was specifically chosen for the sound it produces so, you know, extra care handling these would be a wise precaution.
JOHN: Hey, Stuart, we need to wrap this up. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions though. What do you think sets McCallum apart from other bagpipe makers?
STUART: I would say what sets us apart would really be probably just the good customer service and we've been manufacturing very, very good quality instruments here that are getting played at all levels of pipe bands and, to be honest, we've got some really good people here.
JOHN: Now, I'm sure you don't get to talk to the end customers as much as you'd like. What's one thing you would like them to know about McCallum?
STUART: Well, I mean, McCallum's is not that big of a company. We have 22 employees so people can get to speak to myself or Kenny, so you're not speaking to a secretary or anything like that, or a receptionist. People can contact myself direct and we are always willing to, you know, to take on any customer's, not complaints, but any customer's ideas of anything that, you know, could help improve our product. I mean, they can actually phone us up direct and speak to us.
JOHN: Now before I let you go, here, a couple things. One is how can shoppers recognize an authorized, official or reputable McCallum dealer or stock list representative online?
STUART: That is a very difficult question. The only thing I would say if anyone has any doubts regarding suppliers of McCallum products, I would suggest that they actually contact us direct and we would be more than happy to point them in the right direction.
JOHN: Excellent. Now, do you have a website and possibly contact number that people can reach you by?
STUART: Yeah, sure. The website is www.mccallumbagpipes.com and McCallum is M-C-C-A-LL-UM and contact telephone numbers from calling here in Scotland is 01563527002 or you can email at info@mccallumbagpipes.com.
JOHN: Well, Stuart, I want to thank you for joining us today on VTalk Radio's Business Spotlight and also Rory Grossart.
STUART: You're very welcome.
JOHN: We've been in the studio with Stuart McCallum of McCallum Bagpipes and special guest, Rory Grossart. You've been listening to VTalk Radio's Business Spotlight. Everyone have a great afternoon.
ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio's Business Spotlight has been brought to you by Henderson Imports. Henderson in Northern Michigan is a supplier of bagpipes, piping supplies, pipe band percussion, and highland wear. Henderson can supply the full range of products made by McCallum Bagpipes. You can visit them on the web at www.hendersongroupltd.com. You've been listening to VTalk Radio's Spotlight only on VTalkradio.com radio for the 21st century.
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