Better known on social media as Ray Akira, the Pudu-born Choo became enamoured of the sound of the guitar while at boarding school and resolved to be a guitar icon like Carlos Santana, Eddie Van Halen and Eric Clapton.
“I got ‘poisoned’ by the sound, the tone, the resonance, the vibration of the wood,” he said. “I just fell in love with it.”
Now 42, his lofty ambition at age 17 was met with some resistance from his family of entrepreneurs.
To compromise with his family’s objections, Choo went to work as an optician. After two years, however, he felt he could no longer turn his back on his dream and soon was learning the various styles of guitar playing.
He became a session musician and would cut his teeth playing shows in pubs, in professional recordings and on international cruise ships.
Meeting Choo, it’s clear that it is far more than his passion for the guitar and his steely determination to work in music that got him here. His affable persona as the man behind The Guitar Hospital, in the quaint neighbourhood of Taman Desa Aman, is another reason why he’s been able to make his dream work.
As its name suggests, the hospital’s patients are guitars in dire straits.
Speaking with FMT Lifestyle, he recalled how he once even restored a guitar that was shattered into fragments back to working condition.
“We started as a guitar repair company in 2008,” he said. “We accumulated experience by repairing, modifying, and upgrading guitars to make them sound and play better.
“We work on all kinds of guitars, from cheap ones to very expensive.”
After doing repairs for a while, Choo and his team pondered on the possibility of making their very own guitars. This resulted in Choo’s made-to-order guitar brand, Shue Guitars, being established in 2019.
“Before we started building our brand, we were manufacturing equipment for an Italian brand for about seven years,” he said. “Since we had experience in manufacturing and quality control, I thought it would be better if we could do it on our own.
“We offer custom orders based on what a player needs.”
Choo began investing in many heavy-duty machinery and tools like laser cutters and milling machines that allow Shue Guitars to accommodate customisation requests at an efficient rate. These requests include guitar necks of varying thicknesses, body shapes, sizes, woods, inlays and electronic configurations.
Everything is made in-house with a team of 10 highly skilled craftspersons. They take charge of different duties, from wood carving to sanding to polishing.
However, there are external factors which pose challenges to Shue Guitars, such as the energy crisis and the Russian-Ukraine conflict. These have disrupted the supply chain for some guitar parts.
Choo is a big champion of building guitars out of Malaysian wood. He cites local blackwood, jelutong, and monkey pod as being already used by famous guitar brands like Fender and James Tyler Guitars.
Jelutong, in particular, is favoured among pencil manufacturers owing to its low density, straight grain and fine texture, which make it easy to work with.
“It’s very, very well known among western brands and they’re selling their guitars quite expensively,” he said. “Our advantage is we get it locally. It makes it cheaper.”
Shue guitars go range between RM5,300 and RM10,000, depending on customisation settings.
Their customers have included local guitarist Sham Kamikaze, Malaysian composer Nappie Hasson, and internationally acclaimed blues guitarist Jamie Wilson.
Choo hopes to make Shue Guitars more publicly accessible in coming years. One day, perhaps, his customised guitars will take its place next to the great guitar brands of today.