The Story Behind the Shop

I learned to play guitar before I learned much else, and music has stayed with me through every version of my life since.

That matters more than it might seem. Knowing what a player or producer is actually chasing, not on paper but by feel, changes how you build for them.

Pickups became the obsession after one unexpected moment: dropping an upgraded set into a guitar I'd never quite trusted, and feeling it come alive under my hands for the first time. That moment convinced me tone isn't something fixed inside a guitar. It's something built.

Long before that, I spent years working with my hands in ways that had nothing to do with music: wiring, hydraulics, heavy machines, metal, wood. Later came years building things people watch and hear for a living. Both halves are still present in everything that comes out of this shop.

The name carries something personal. For years, an umbrella has been the symbol I use to mean shelter, a place set apart to create without distraction. That's where "Rainy Day" comes from, even though the mark on this side of the work is different: a bolt, the spark that turned an idea into something real. The umbrella isn't on the page here, but it doesn't need to be. Every rainy day implies one.

The Lab carries that same idea forward: a space built for experimentation, not for repeating what's already been done. That experimentation has lived in pickups so far, including collaborative builds with respected boutique guitar makers, but the workshop was never built around just one thing. Stands, cases, wiring harnesses for complex rigs: whatever a working musician actually needs and can't easily find, this is where it gets built next.

— Robert Owens Founder & Owner, Rainy Day Sound Labs