The Globe and Mail, Canada
Nov 15 2004
Cymbal company drums up A-list clientele
Craftsmanship, epic family history keep musicians flocking to N.B.
factory
By GORDON PITTS
MEDUCTIC, N.B. — Neil Peart, iconic drummer for the Canadian rock
group Rush, set out on a pilgrimage last fall.
He flew from Los Angeles to Montreal, where he picked up his
motorcycle and headed east. Hours later, he roared up to a red metal
building on the Saint John River in rural New Brunswick.
Mr. Peart spent a day touring cymbal-maker Sabian Ltd., and the
result has been a design and marketing collaboration. Sabian now
manufactures Mr. Peart’s line of Paragon cymbals, priced from about
$300 to $500 a unit.
“It’s selling very well,” said Sabian owner Robert Zildjian,
81-year-old heir to a family craft tradition that has journeyed from
17th-century Turkey to modern New Brunswick.
Mr. Peart is among the legions of percussionists who have, over four
decades, made the trek to the sleepy village of Meductic, N.B. They
come to see Sabian’s metal-working process and thrill to its epic
history of warring brothers, family dislocation, and a cast of
characters that range from the sultan of Turkey to the sultans of
swing, jazz drummers Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.
Sabian’s day-to-day operations are handled by Dan Barker, the
company’s 55-year-old president, but Mr. Zildjian happily admits that
he interferes. “I’m a pain in the neck at times. I like to see what
is going on because Sabian is my child.” (Mr. Zildjian and his wife,
Willie, also have three flesh-and-blood offspring, Sally, Bill and
Andy– thus the name Sa-bi-an.)
The company is bouncing back from a downbeat year in 2003, when the
SARS epidemic and U.S. nervousness over war and terrorism toned down
sales of musical instruments, leading to level revenues at Sabian
after years of double-digit growth. This year, Sabian says it is
beating out a growth rhythm again.
After the death of his father, Avedis, in 1979, Mr. Zildjian split
bitterly with his older brother, Armand, who controlled the family’s
cymbal company in Norwell, Mass.
In the split, Robert was able to take some assets from Avedis
Zildjian Co., including its small Canadian plant in Meductic, which
became Sabian. Twenty-two years later, the Sabian and Zildjian
companies are battling for the loyalty of the world’s percussionists,
with a combined 60 to 70 per cent of the quality cymbal market.
The Sabian people say they make more units, more than 900,000 a year,
but the Zildjian company generates more revenue.
“Sabian and Zildjian compete vigorously,” said former Sabian
executive David McAllister, who now runs Latin Percussion, a U.S.
distributor of musical instruments. Because the overall market has
grown, both companies have been able to prosper, he said.
Robert Zildjian, still hurt by the split with his now-deceased
brother, says his 140-employee company is more profitable than its
rival, based on annual sales of $30-million to $35-million. He has no
contact with Craigie Zildjian, Armand’s daughter, who now runs the
family firm, although he did speak to Armand before his death two
years ago.
That feud seems far removed from the peaceful village of frame houses
that Sabian now calls home.
The plant buildings are a percussionist’s paradise as the cymbals
pass through the metal-working process, based on the secret Zildjian
method for combining copper and tin.
Cymbals are hammered, often by hand, into subtle hills and valleys of
sound. For a drummer, the relationship can be intensely personal,
said Mr. Barker, himself a former bubble-gum-rock drummer from
Weymouth, Mass.
The final production area involves testing and packaging, where a
couple of workers bang away on performance sets, creating jazzy riffs
that sound more fitting for a smoky basement in Greenwich Village
than a modern factory.
The Sabian website lists an all-star lineup of professional users,
including Phil Collins, Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and
musicians who support country crooner Lyle Lovett, cellist Yo-Yo Ma,
and an army of marching bands.
The Zildjian saga contains obvious parallels to the breakup of the
McCain brothers, founders of the McCain Foods Ltd. French fry empire
in nearby Florenceville, N.B. Mr. Zildjian jokes that if only
brothers Harrison and Wallace McCain had come down to see him, he
might have saved them some lawyers’ bills.
The Zildjian clash had its origins in Constantinople in 1623 when
Robert Zildjian’s Armenian ancestor, an alchemist named Avedis, was
appointed cymbal-maker to the Turkish sultan. In the early 20th
century, a later Avedis Zildjian, fleeing Turkish oppression of
Armenians and linked to a plot against the Turkish ruler, escaped to
the United States.
He brought the old family business to Massachusetts in the late
1920s, only to be greeted by the Depression. He was saved by jazz,
and relationships with drummers such as Mr. Krupa and Mr. Rich. Then,
in 1964, Beatlemania hit and cymbal crashes became part of a rock ‘n’
rollers’ repertoire.
Avedis’s death left sons Armand and Robert at odds. But Robert knew
New Brunswick, having fished and hunted in the Miramichi.
In the 1960s, he had opened the family’s Meductic plant to get around
British Commonwealth duties. The plant made money, he liked the
people, and he took it in the settlement.
Along the way, he found Mr. Barker, a former manager with the Avedis
Zildjian Co., who had been a casualty of the family split.
Mr. Barker was running a music store and import company, with limited
financial success, when Sabian took him in and moved him to Meductic
in 1985.
Today, 90 per cent of Sabian’s output is exported with 40 per cent
going to the United States. The rising value of the Canadian dollar
has hit profits and sales, at a time of big price hikes in copper and
tin.
Mr. Zildjian, now a Canadian citizen, said the first response will be
to raise U.S. prices. “It’s just a thing that has to be done,” he
said.
He does not foresee a large shift of production to the United States,
although Sabian has a distribution centre in Maine. “The only thing
we’d ever shift there is cheap beginner stuff to compete with the
Chinese and Taiwanese. That means nothing to Canada or even nothing
to Sabian.”
Mr. Zildjian has recently experienced some medical problems, and even
landed in hospital after a bad reaction to heart medication while at
his Bermuda home. (He also has residences in Meductic and Maine.)
Having gone through a harsh sibling battle, he has plotted his own
succession. Ownership will be split equally among his children, but
Andy, who runs the company’s U.S. operations, will ultimately call
the shots. “If it all boils down to a mess, Andy has the final say.”
He says Andy has the people skills, and older brother Bill, who
handles artist relations, goes along with that. Sally does not work
in the company day-to-day.
Although he regularly gets feelers to sell, Mr. Zildjian said Sabian
has a strong future going solo in the growing percussion market. Not
that he’s satisfied with his market position against the old family
company. “In five years, we have to be the No. 1 cymbal of choice,
not just with pros, but beginners.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress