Interview with Matt Pelling of Rhodes Music
Rhodes CEO Matt Pelling discusses preserving heritage, embracing technology, reaching new audiences, and keeping an iconic music brand relevant for future generations.
As Rhodes marks its 80th anniversary, CEO Matt Pelling reflects on the challenges of leading a heritage music brand through its latest chapter. He discusses preserving what made Rhodes distinctive, embracing new technology, expanding into software, and balancing changing customer expectations with the craftsmanship and identity at the heart of the brand.
Given your years of experience being a CEO of a longstanding music brand, what do you think makes a heritage brand worth preserving?
I’ve spent a lot of years running Loopmasters too, which is a very different kind of business, but it’s given me a useful outside perspective on what actually earns loyalty versus what’s just familiarity.
A heritage brand is worth preserving when the thing that made it special in the first place is still the thing musicians actually want — not just a story you tell about the past. With Rhodes, that’s the sound. Anyone who’s played one knows there’s a character to it that’s never been fully replicated, and that’s not nostalgia talking; it’s physics and craftsmanship. My job is to protect the thing that made the legacy in the first place and make sure it’s still true today, not just protect a logo. If a heritage brand can’t point to something concrete and still relevant like that, it’s not really heritage; it’s just an old name. I’ve spent a lot of years running Loopmasters too, which is a very different kind of business, but it’s given me a useful outside perspective on what actually earns loyalty versus what’s just familiarity.
When you’re modernizing a brand with such a strong identity, how do you decide what should stay and what needs to change?
I try to separate identity from habit. A lot of what gets defended as “tradition” in a heritage brand is really just how things happened to be done, not something core to the product or the experience. So the test I use with Rhodes is: does changing this change what the instrument feels like or sounds like in someone’s hands? If yes, we’re very careful and usually don’t touch it. If no — it’s packaging, it’s the buying process, it’s how we talk to customers — that’s fair game, and honestly overdue for change in a lot of legacy brands. Coming from the software side of the industry through Loopmasters, I probably move faster on that second category than a lot of instrument-only operators would.
Technology is changing how people create and experience music. How do you think about bringing new technology into a heritage brand?
Technology should support the craft, not replace it. I’m wary of any framing where the tech does the creative work for the person — that’s not why someone picks up a Rhodes. When we’re thinking about the next generation of instruments, or how a Rhodes sound reaches someone through software, the question is always, “Does this get someone to a better musical result faster, without flattening what makes their choices personal?” If a new feature makes the tool feel more like a slot machine than an instrument, we don’t ship it, no matter how impressive the tech is. Having run a software platform alongside this gives me a clearer sense of where that line actually sits — you see very quickly what genuinely helps a musician versus what’s just novelty.
How do you connect with a new generation of customers while staying true to the people who have supported the brand for years?
Honestly, I think the split between “legacy fans” and “new generation” is less real than people assume. A nineteen-year-old bedroom producer discovering the Rhodes sound through a sample or a plugin cares about the same thing a session player did in the 1970s — does it sound good, and does it inspire them? What’s changed is the entry point, not the desire. So we meet new audiences where they actually are, without watering down what the instrument stands for. If anything, long-time fans respect the brand more when they see it taken seriously in new formats rather than just reissued in old ones.
A lot of music brands are moving into digital products as well as physical instruments. What has that shift taught you about reaching new audiences?
It’s taught me that digital isn’t a marketing add-on to a physical brand; it’s a genuinely different relationship with the customer. With hardware, you sell someone an instrument and, if you’re lucky, you see them again in years. With software, you’re in a continuous conversation — feedback, usage, iteration. That’s a lesson I brought with me, where the software side of the business runs on a completely different rhythm from hardware, and it’s shaped how I think about where Rhodes needs a digital presence and where it doesn’t.
What have you found most challenging about keeping a heritage product relevant while also making it more accessible?
The challenge isn’t creative; it’s structural: how do you give someone a real, non-diluted way into the sound and the world of the brand at a price and in a format that makes sense for where they are.
Price and complexity are the honest answer. A genuine Rhodes instrument is expensive to make properly, and the people who most need a lower barrier to entry — younger, newer musicians — are the ones least able to justify that cost. So the challenge isn’t creative; it’s structural: how do you give someone a real, non-diluted way into the sound and the world of the brand at a price and in a format that makes sense for where they are, without cheapening what the flagship instrument represents? That’s a much harder problem than it sounds, and I don’t think we — or any heritage instrument brand — have fully solved it yet.
When tradition, innovation, sustainability and customer expectations pull in different directions, how do you make those decisions?
I don’t think there’s a formula — anyone who claims there is one is probably oversimplifying. What I try to do is get very specific about what’s actually being asked of each side before I weigh them against each other, because a lot of “tradition vs innovation” conflicts turn out to be false once you look closely. When they’re genuinely in tension at Rhodes, I default to whichever choice protects the long-term trust of the people who rely on us — players, dealers, and the team who’ve built the brand’s credibility over years. Short-term wins that cost you that trust are rarely worth it.
Looking ahead, what do you think heritage brands will need to do to stay relevant for the next generation?
Stay honest about what’s actually special versus what’s just familiar, and be willing to change the second category aggressively. The heritage brands that struggle are usually the ones protecting habit rather than substance. The ones that last treat their heritage as a foundation to build from, not a museum piece to guard — they keep making, keep shipping, keep taking risks on new formats, while being ruthless about preserving the one or two things that actually made people fall in love with them in the first place.
