Original Music Merchandise

The founders of Overdrive Merch go back exactly 30 years ago this year!   

Rob Stephani and Michael Buttitta connected when Rob started working at one of the largest independent retail music stores in the country, Guitar Showcase in San Jose, California back in 1992. Michael was already managing at the store and ended up being the lucky one to have to train Rob, where they discovered their combined entrepreneurial interests in the music business.

Shortly after their run at Guitar Showcase, they started their own music store called Paradise Music in 1993, just half a mile down the street from one of the largest Musical Instrument chain stores in the world.

After 4 years of working together at Paradise Music, Michael took some time to dive into the high-tech market during the .com boom of the late 90’s, while Rob stayed in the music store business for another 4 years and grew the business and added a second  location, until he sold off the company in 2001 with bigger ideas on the horizon.

In 2003, Rob and Michael connected again to start up one of the hottest guitar accessory companies of the new millennium called Hot Picks, winning Best in Show awards multiple years at NAMM.

After an amazing 15 years in business, a crazy 2008 economic downturn, millions of dollars in sales, dozens of licenses, and a huge customer base, Hot Picks was sold in 2018 to one of our manufacturers and a great friend in the music business - Carson from Pick Guy!

Then, in 2018, Overdrive Merch was born and evolved into becoming a Distributor for music stores. After hitting stride for a couple years, the Pandemic that shall not be named went around and turned our economy upside down. Overdrive needed to pivot, while maintaining sales and developing new designs in the process.

But as you can see, we are still distributing the Hot Picks brand! We’re back, kicking up a bunch of dust again with other concepts in mind, looking forward to bringing new products to market and working through supply chain issues to continue improving our customer service in 2022 and beyond!

Our company was built on the foundation of being in the retail musical instrument space for over 15 years.

Having worked for larger music stores and running our own locations, we know what it takes to make a product stand out to maximize daily sales!

If there is one thing that we know, accessories are a key part in acquiring an impulse sale that may not have happened otherwise. This is especially important if your store has the consistent flow of students for guitar lessons.

Often times you have shoppers simply looking for a gift for a musician in the family, and our products are the perfect choice because they can perfectly represent that personality. Any guitar player that uses picks will always find something that fits their tastes, or appreciate an awesome and inexpensive Straplock set to keep their guitar or bass safe!

Lastly, don't forget to check out our POP counter displays. They are incredibly space friendly and hold a fair to a large amount of product for your customer to choose from, depending on which display you go with.

To get you started, we provide a free display with the purchase of 20 or more packs of picks and/or a free display with a purchase of 10 or more Straplock packs.