Local Focus: Instruments repaired for Toto, Kool & The Gang and many other touring artists

Tiki Taane, Brendan Dugan, a lot of the L.A.B boys, Brendon Thomas, Toto, Kool and The Gang, UB40, Devilskin - it's a who's who of the music world. So what do they all have in common?

They've all called Waylon McPherson to the rescue.

"We get a good mixture of all sorts of different musicians that come in, from grassroots right up to crazy big rockstars," McPherson said.

McPherson is the co-owner of McPherson Stompboxes, a guitar repair workshop run from his family home in Pāpāmoa. He's built up a reputation for being able to fix almost anything musical.

"Tiki's a local musician. When he came in his guitar needed some work. That was the first thing we did for him, to get his guitar running for a tour he had coming up. And then he's just dropped in bits and pieces from then just when he's around."

International artist Toto sought McPherson out when the band played in Mount Maunganui in January.

"We had Toto come down. Well, not Toto in person, but one of their runners brought their amp in. There was a bass amp that wasn't going for the gig that night and we were just close proximity to where they were playing and so we got that up and running for them for the gig. Apparently, it went off pretty well, so that's always good."

But it's not just guitars and amps McPherson can fix at a moment's notice.

"Kool & the Gang is, I suppose, one of my more favourite ones because it was a trumpet. And it was the famous trumpet that plays on all their tracks. It's like a 40 to 50 year old trumpet and it was broken.

"I'm not a trumpet fixer person at all. We said we'd have a look at it and it was a solder job just to make it stronger. They came down and I fixed it up to make it work again and did it well enough that they got through the gig."

Besides repairing musical equipment, McPherson also handmakes guitar pedals.

One even made it on to the Ellen Show in the United States via 9-year-old Australian performer Taj Farrant, business manager Shelly McPherson said.

"A couple of years ago I got in touch with his parents and I said 'we think Taj is a really cool little guitarist', he was 7 at the time, and that we would really like to help him out if we can. And it was awesome to see Taj Farrant using our McPherson Fusion Wah pedal on the Ellen Show."

Closer to home, the pair have created pedals for Shihad to celebrate their anniversary tour.

"I said to hubby, 'hey it's their anniversary tour do you think we can look at doing something for the guys?' and he said 'yeah why not'. We took a couple over with us and the boys were really appreciative and liked them so much a couple of the other lads said 'can we have some?' So we said 'yeah we can absolutely do that' so that's what we did."

And as with many small business ideas, the creation of McPherson Stompboxes wasn't really a planned thing.

"It kind of happened organically," Waylon said. "It wasn't something I decided to do. It feels like something I fell into but it's something I really love doing, it's not something I trained to do."

Made with funding from