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The Boaz One still isn’t here, and things are getting messier
“I’m going after him the moment ‘his product’ lands stateside” is never a statement you want to read from a former team member.
The Boaz One just can’t catch a break, can it? Not only has the guitar mostly remained in post-Kickstarter limbo since our last update, there’s a chance that litigation from a former team member will throw another spanner into the works.
Gordon Roberts – who wrote most of the Kickstarter updates for the Boaz One – was a member of the team (although never an official employee, according to him) before being kicked off the project by lead Boaz Elkayam. He was also the admin of an unofficial Facebook group for backers, and while this group is now private, Roberts’ latest post has been captured by members and shared with Guitar.com.
In it, he details his side of the story of the development of the Boaz One – and, stated that the dynamic is going to change “as soon as [Boaz Elkayam] ships his first guitar to America.”
He begins, however, by singling out Boaz for both taking full credit for the guitar’s design, instead claiming that “Boaz and I actually designed most of this guitar’s concept together”. He also asserts he introduced the idea of making the guitar modular, as previously Boaz’s ideas were to just “make a guitar out of plastic.”
Roberts also shared how he will document his side of the story in an extensive article he plans to publish later this year. This will apparently go over emails between him and Boaz, showing “how I steered him away from his original idea which was to make a mass-produced plastic novelty instrument and made the design decisions that resulted in the instrument that raised a half a million dollars on Kickstarter.”
Following this, Roberts claims it would later be his “difficult questions” that caused Boaz to shut him out of the project entirely. These questions were surrounding not only the whereabouts of the money from the second run of instruments (the Plague Guitars), but also the initial funds from the campaign: Roberts claimed Boaz did not pay US tax on the near-$500,000 of Kickstarter money before transferring it out of the country. And yet, “he transferred the money anyway and those taxes were never paid. He still owes those taxes and he will have to pay them plus penalties before he begins shipping product into the States.”
But it’s not just this that could impact the future of the Boaz One: Elkayam’s workshop was set up in the Golan Heights, an area that EU member states do not recognise as Israeli territory. Roberts claims he advised Elkayam against setting up here, as it would mean he would be “partially restricted both legally and, in the eyes of many, morally, from doing business in the European Union.” However, Elkayam did not take this advice.
These issues set out, Roberts then implores members of the group to contact Elkayam and “ask him to explain to you how any of this is not true,” and “tell him that I’m going after him the moment ‘his product’ lands stateside. I’m done with being the bad guy in this scenario.”
Roberts then ends with: “I have exhibited remarkable restraint thanks to the advice of my lawyer but that is about to change. It changes as soon as he ships his first guitar to America.”
Roberts and Elkayam have been contacted for comment.
It’s not really possible to determine the full extent of the financial difficulties Boaz Innovative Stringed instruments is facing from Roberts’ statement alone. However, it is still possible to see that the last update from Boaz in the remaining Facebook group for backers was all the way back in February.
While the update video itself shows functional Boaz One guitars, the comments are still filled with disappointed Kickstarter backers. In the caption of the video, Elkayam writes: “We hope that next month we will be able to start [to] ship, but can’t promise.”
Across March, there was no update to indicate shipment has begun, however, backers were still commenting on the post a week ago asking what is happening with their guitars. With many of the backers based in the US and EU, it is possible that the problems Roberts laid out have complicated things – or that the Boaz One has hit yet another production delay.