EMG Guitar Pickups

ROB TURNER: In 1974, I started EMG in the back of my parents' garage by building various electronic gadgets and repairing amplifiers. I had played around with pickups as early as 1969 but didn't get around to "business" until a few years later.

We got our first business license under the name of Dirtywork Studios in April 1976. In 1978, we changed the name to Overlend, because we were overextended on credit and it sounded nice. In 1983 we became EMG, Inc. (the big time) and haven't looked back. Through all the company name changes the pickups were always known as EMG Pickups. Not many people know why we called them "EMG", but we'll let you in on the secret now - EMG stands for Electro-Magnetic Generator!