Description:

Panhead Custom Ales is a beer brand on a mission to liberate people from the humdrum, through the power of hot rod culture, heavy music and premium craft beer.

Our challenge was to create an experience that allows grownup ratbags to cut loose and live loud. And what better way to set people free than a taste of rock n roll?

Introducing – Slay to Pay
The interactive guitar amp, where you have to slay the guitar to pay for a beer.

Slay to Pay turns the mundane task of a retail purchase into a craft beer ‘Guitar Hero’ for adults. Punters who impress the AI-powered machine with their guitar shredding skills get rewarded with a nice cold Panhead brew.

The overarching visual approach is a dynamic fusion of Panhead’s love of heavy music and custom hot rod culture.

The build design is modelled after the legendary Marshall guitar amp, equipped with a custom Explorer guitar. The unit includes a bespoke stand crafted from upcycled beer kegs, brewery piping, and Panhead beer taps.

The iconic Rat Fink aesthetic of Hot Rod legend Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth, became the inspiration for the graphic elements. Roth’s distinct style informed the machine’s typography and UI graphics, while illustrations echoed Roth’s classic Monster Car poster art.

To technically judge guitar slaying abilities, Slay to Pay captures guitar samples via a digital sound card. An onboard CPU uses custom code to send real time guitar data to a specialised internet API. AI-assisted ‘audio fingerprinting’ compares guitar samples against an extensive dataset to determine an outcome.

The machine passes or fails a player based on judging parameters set within the menu interface. A win triggers an internal mechanism which releases the ultimate reward – a tasty Panhead brew.

By turning a typical sampling opportunity into an interactive rock ‘n’ roll happening, Slay to Pay cranks the customer experience up to 11. The gamification of beer sampling adds an element of challenge, excitement and a feeling of accomplishment for successful slayers. It’s been scientifically proven that beer tastes better when you earn it; we say 666 times better when you earn it with your guitar shredding skills.

Launched at the Rolling Stone Music Awards, rock stars happily lined up to test their guitar shredding skills. The Slay to Pay tour followed, serving up rockstar moments and cold beers to Panhead fans.

Slay to Pay set a bold new standard for Panhead, generating over 70 news articles worldwide, amassing more than 100 million opportunities to see, and increasing engagement across social platforms by 300%.