Musicians Hotline is proud to sit down and talk shop with one of the country's premier luthiers, Don Grosh. From start to finish, Grosh Guitars are some of the finest guitars this world has to offer. Grosh Guitars provides traditional styles and offers innovative and cosmetic upgrades to their instruments that propel them to a class of their own. Here is what Don had to say.

MH: Don, tell us how you got your start in luthiering guitars.
DG: I started playing when I was about 18, kind of a late start. I've always been the type of person that was building. I was building skate boards when I was a kid. I built skate boards, a BMX bike. My Dad had a machine shop and I worked there during my summers in Junior High and High School. I learned how to operate all types of equipment, welders things like that so I utilized his shop and built my frames. So when I could I was always building stuff and when I started playing guitar it was just kind of a natural progression for me to start working on them and build them. I pieced together my own stuff basically right after I started playing. I started messing around with an electric guitar that my brother had, a cheap Harmony guitar and started playing around on that a little bit. I repainted it, did little things like that with it and started from there.

MH: Who were your musical influences?
DG: A lot of people. I have two older brothers and they went through the whole 60's thing so I had a lot of influences from what they were listening to at the time from Hendrix, the Doors, everybody back then. I would say for myself, as far as my musical playing influences probably early on was Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, were probably my two bigger influences. I like a lot of different music so at this point there isn't like one or even a sector that I'm 100% into. I like a lot of different things right now.

MH: What model and when did the very first Grosh Guitar appear bearing the logo on the headstock?
DG: I was working at Valley Arts, I worked there for about 8 years. I was the production upervisor there. I think it was 1992, I decided that I wanted to branch out and do my own thing. I started buying equipment. Actually I already had a small shop in my garage. So I just started buying other things I needed to do the guitars. I put together 3 prototypes in 1992 that actually were in the Matchless booth at the NAMM Show. My first 3 guitars were Tele's. A Retro Classic Tele, and then a nylon string Tele, and a 2 humbucker flattop with a quilted top. Those were the first 3 prototypes. Then I quit Valley Arts in 1993 and actually started going full time for Grosh Guitars.

MH: When did you first open your doors for business and start accepting custom orders?
DG: It was in February of 1993 when I started on my own. Actually I think I left Valley Arts in late 1992 but I still had a few months there where I was getting all my stuff together. So 1993 is actually when I started.

MH: Tell us a bit about your facility and key employees at Don Grosh Guitars.
DG: We moved into this new shop about 2 years ago. It's a decent size shop, about 3,000 square feet, located in Canyon Country, CA. It's enough room for all of us and the equipment. Right now we have four employees plus myself. My longest term employee is Mike Tuttle. He does all the final stuff on the guitar, the assembly, the polishing and the final fret work on the guitars. He's pretty much been with me since the beginning.

MH: Do you utilize CNC equipment there?
DG: Yeah, we've had CNC equipment for about 7 years. That basically enables me to keep the accuracy that I want for our guitars. A lot of the work is still done by hand, the fret, the back shapes, and all that type of stuff.

MH: Grosh Guitars offer improvements on proven traditional designs. What do you feel are the most unique aspects of your guitars?
DG: To be totally honest with you, when I set out to do this I never wanted to copy a replica of some of the earlier guitars. I wanted to do something for myself that I felt like I could get out of the guitars. So doing that, I came up with ideas that I thought could really help contribute the tone, the playability and the overall feel of the guitar and try and do that on a consistent basis, where every guitar you picked up that I make would consistently have that sound and feel. Certain things that I did I felt no one else was doing, like when we do our fingerboard edges, our fret edges just the overall feel. I'm a player, I've been playing for about 23 years now, and I pretty much know what I want to feel and what I want to hear. So spending extra time on the neck was definitely an important thing.

MH: Anyspecial techniques, either by hand or machinery that you feel are unique to your designs?
DG: There are a lot of small things that I think makes the whole package. I can't say that there is anything really unique or innovative to us that other builders aren't doing, it's actually the human element that is the most important thing. Putting that back into the guitar rather then just being a machine stamped out generic guitar is actually putting the individual feel of the person making into the guitar, and I think that is what we really try to do.

MH: What would you consider to be a typical Don Grosh Player?
DG: It's really all over the place. We have the hard working players out there that are playing all the time. Then you have the weekend executives that really enjoys playing and wants a really nice high end guitar. Then you have more of like the collector guy that is more after the nicest figured maple top he can get, just really spec¹d out exactly the way he wants it. It's really hard to pinpoint that.

MH: Are most of your orders Custom Shop orders?
DG: That's really what we are. What weoffer to the customer is a lot of options. It makes it a little more difficult in making the guitar, but I like it on that personal level. For instance, finish option, I can do any color. I do all the painting myself, I do all the building, so if you send me a color chip I can match it. We really try to cater to the customer for what they want. Obviously I'm not going to do certain things that I think will make the guitar sound bad or certain configurations I think won't work, I'll talk to the customer about it and work it out. Certain things like fret size, neck shape, finishes or someone wants something a little bit different or custom, we'll talk about that.

MH: What are your favorite woods personally that you like to build both body and neck out of?
DG: It really depends on the model. It's more classic for myself, I like the Alder body with a maple/rosewood which I have now. If it's going to be one of our carved tops, I like mahogany for the back, personally I like quilted maple top.

MH: Tell us a little bit about how you get your incredible tops on your guitars.
DG: I basically pay for them. I only buy the best tops that I can. We build such limited number of guitars, it's really important for me to have my top. We don't grade our tops. Basically when you buy our guitars, you get the master grade top on the guitar.

MH: Was there a particular endorser that helped propel your brand recognition?
DG: David Barry. He actually was the first one. His first guitar is actually #30 something, so he is one of the first ones. After that Randy Jacobs, he has one of the early guitars. I never really went out and looked for artists, it's just been kind of a word of mouth thing.

MH: This is your first trip to the NAMM Show in a few years. Any new models or surprises we can expect at the Winter NAMM Show?
DG: Yeah, it's the first time in about three years. Actually this year we're kind of getting a late start and we just want to come back and kind of say hi to the people and meet new people. It's not really a blast out, we'll have a smaller number of guitars. We're really excited. We've got a set neck model that we will introduce there and that's kind of the bigger push.

MH: This will be the very first set neck model?
DG: It's definitely going to be our most high end guitar we're going to be making. The overall idea of the guitar and how it's built, I spent about two years on this guitar, a year was in the design. We made six prototypes, so I spent a lot of time on it. I don't know if you would call
it our flagship model, but it's kind of a model that I've been wanting to do for a long time, branching out into something that will give us a different identity. We're trying new things and want to expand.

MH: Any plans to make acousticor bass guitars?
DG: We make about four different bass models. We have two different five string Jazz basses, we have a four string Jazz bass and we have a P-bass. We've been doing those for about three years. We do the nylon acoustic and the steel strings. I've always played acoustic, I've made a few acoustic guitars. I have all my design work and some pictures for acoustic. I'll probably start making some for myself and maybe eventually start offering them.

MH: What is your opinion of the current boutique guitar market and how do you see your company continuing to evolve in the future?
DG: I think the overall boutique market is great. I think the boutique guitar market survives the ups and downs of the economy and doesn't really fall into that. What I've seen in the last few years with the economy and 9/11, it seems like it's pretty strong. I think we have a good place in the boutique market. We're excited for the next year, we're going to be doing some new things and expanding a little bit. It's looking very positive.

MH: I think it would be fair to say the average consumer guitar player these days in the boutique market expect a certain level of quality, thanks to a lot of guys like yourself.
DG: It has brought up on the whole standard. Now you start seeing production guitars whose quality is really coming up. When I first started playing compared to now, they are making some good guitars out there. The bar gets raised by the Custom builders and then the production companies have to try and match that.

MH: You have a smaller kind of exclusive dealer base that you market your guitars through. Do you see yourself expanding to more dealers?
DG: With our dealers it's not how many, it's the quality. We want to really service our dealers well and I think it's better to have fewer dealers that are really behind the line and do real well with the line, because at that point you don't have to have a lot of dealers. It's all about the quality and we want to offer great quality service and we want to be in line with dealers who are like minded with our product. That's why we keep it small. We're just not ready to go out there and sign everybody. We have some new requirements that help everybody out.

MH: In closing Don, what do you feel has been the main attribute that has contributed to your success?
DG: I think it's really building the guitars for myself. Obviously I want to make other people happy, but I want put everything into the guitar to make myself feel satisfied and happy. That's kind of the way I've always been. There are certain things I won't let go because it would bother me if it were my guitar so it's just really that quality control. Putting a 100% heart and soul into what I'm doing.

MH: Any words of wisdom or advice for people out there who are thinking of getting into luthiering?
DG: Basically, just jump in and start doing it. As a career, if it's something you really want to do, I think anyone can find a way to do it just like anything in life, you just have to pursue it 100% and have the belief that you can do it. That's the number one thing, believing you can do it, not just hoping you can do it. You have to have that stamina to get through it.

Click Here to find a Don Grosh dealer near you!

Information:
Don Grosh Guitars
26818 Oak Ave #F
Santa Clarita, CA 91351
661-252-6716
www.groshguitars.com
info@groshguitars.com

Return to: