Larry’s Music Center Gives former Instructor – and ‘X-Factor’ Runner-up – Fender Strat

Gabriel O’Brien and Josh Krajcik with the Strat that Larry’s gave to Josh.

We were recently contacted by the good folks at Ohio’s Larry’s Music Center (locations in Wooster and Millersburg) about some recent events of note at the store.

During last season’s run of the television program, ‘X-Factor,’ former Larry’s Music Center guitar instructor Josh Krajcik was a contestent who wound up being runner-up in the competition. During the season finale, Larry’s tweeted that the store would be giving Josh a Fender American Standard Stratocaster, win or lose. Ultimately, Krajcik didn’t win that night – but he did get that guitar.

“It was just a crazy idea we came up with while watching the finale,” sales manager Gabriel O’Brien told MMR on Tuesday of this week. “Josh is a longtime Fender player and we knew he could use a new guitar. The initial photo we tweeted was of store owner Brad Shreve holding the same guitar with a maple neck, though we remembered that Josh liked rosewood, so we gave him that one instead. This wasn’t a free guitar from Fender or anything – It was just one off our wall. We were just all very excited for Josh and pleased to see him doing so well. After spending years seeing him play locally it was a great way to celebrate his success. Josh has bought plenty of instruments from us over the years, as has his dad who’s bought a couple guitars in the last year. We’re very happy for him and can’t wait to hear [his new] album when it comes out.”