Teenage Dreams So Hard To Beat

The Story of ELECTRIC BABES®


The Sixties
Norbert Lechner and Helmut Frank are born in a remote mountain village in Austria. Meanwhile two skinny kids named Mick Jagger and Keith Richards bump into Brian Jones in London, England. Their band is named after a Muddy Waters song.
A few years later the Austrian country boys get their first guitars and are infected by a strange virus called Rock & Roll.


The Seventies
After their heroes Duane Allman and Berry Oakley passed, Helmut and Norbert decide to form a band named Skydog and play Southern Rock & Blues in memory of the late members of the Allman Brothers Band.
The band never made it but the buddies are developing a fine musical taste by listening to the great groups of the aera. Their dream begins.


The Eighties
After graduating from High School, Helmut decides to study Electronic Engineering with a strong focus on acoustics and audio while Norbert becomes an architect and designer. They kind of lose contact but always keep their musical childhood memories.
Rock & Roll falls asleep – Disco rules the decade. The CD appears on stage.


The Nineties
Once in a while, our buddies meet at parties. They still cultivate their strange listening behaviour by adoring the music of Clash, Blur, Paul Weller or The Smiths. Norbert starts a career as architect and teacher at the university, gets married and becomes a father of four kids. After working as audio engineer for a few years, Helmut becomes a husband and father too and is employed by one of the major string manufacturers, THOMASTIK-INFELD, to set up and run the R&D department. He jumps into music industry and advances as Director of Strategic Marketing a few years later. From that day on he travels the world visiting music tradeshows and conferences, meeting artists and business partners. He’s living in the fast lane for a long time and has the privilege to meet some of his heroes in person: Albert Lee, George Benson, Tal Farlow, Joe Pass, Jack Cassady, Supertramp, Steve Morse, Slash and many more.
Meanwhile Kurt Cobain finds his way into nirvana.


The New Millenium
Not quite ten years have passed since Axl Rose announced that his first solo project would come up soon.
It is a cold and sunny day in winter when the door of Helmut’s office opens. Norbert enters the room and presents a quick draft of a new design for electric guitars. Rock & Roll has brought our buddies together again and they start discussing how to make their dreams come true. One of their friends, businessman and entrepreneur Leo Gruber, comes up with a business concept and lays ground for forming an enterprise.

In 2006 Helmut quits his job, Norbert builts a first prototype, improves the design to production level and Leo helps them to form a company named DESIGN4SOUND. In August 2006 the first series of guitars comes from the production line and get their common name: ELECTRIC BABES®.
One more musketeer, communication agency owner and guitarist Thomas Gams, shows up on the scene. He develops a communication concept and signs up as first endorsing artist. Now the babes are tested by professional players in extensive field tests and are made perfect in quality and style.

60 years after Leo Fender has introduced his guitar concept to the world, the four friends from Austria have launched a modern classic electric guitar under the brand ELECTRIC BABES®.

The first ELECTRIC BABES® collection is introduced at NAMM 07 and consists of three high-class guitars, each of them manufactured in a limited edition of 99 pieces: Ella, Lilly and Layla.

Finally, teenage dreams have come true.