Good Life Project - Danny Koentopp | On Devotion to Craft

Episode Date: April 9, 2020

Danny Koentopp wakes up every morning, gets dressed, has a bite to eat, kisses his wife and kids, and heads off to a garage in LA, often not coming out until long after the sun has set. For Danny, this garage is a creative temple. An innovative workshop, where he spends his days handcrafting some of the most breathtakingly-beautiful and sought after archtop acoustic jazz guitars and hollow-body electric guitars on the planet. He literally loses time there. But, his story runs deeper than a devotion to craft and music, family and mastery. When Danny steps into his workshop, he's not alone. He built his first guitar side-by-side with his dad in a home workshop. Danny's father passed-on shortly after, but he inhabits this little oasis, guiding and inspiring Danny along the way. In that magical space, they reconnect and make magic together.You can find Dan Koentopp at: Website https://koentoppguitars.com/| Instagram https://www.instagram.com/KoentoppGuitars/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For years, Danny Canetop has woken up every morning, gotten dressed, had a bite to eat, kissed his wife and kids, and headed off to a garage in LA, often not coming out until long after the sun had set. For Danny, though, this garage isn't just a garage. It's a bit of a creative temple, an innovative workshop where he spends his days handcrafting some of the most breathtakingly beautiful and sought-after archtop, jazz, hollow body, electric guitars on the planet. He literally just loses time there, but it hasn't always been this way. Danny grew up in Chicago, started taking guitar lessons when he was seven and fell in love with everything about the instrument. But it was an experience with his

dad, an architect that changed everything. When he was 14, Danny went to the library, found books on guitar building, ran home, and turned the basement closet into a small workshop. That was where, with the help of his dad, he made his first guitar. Tragically and suddenly, Danny's dad passed shortly after. But this shared experience led to a passion that became Danny's life work. And over time also became a way for Danny to keep spending time with his dad a little bit every day in that garage together. In today's conversation, we explore Danny's moving journey, the struggles, the awakenings, failures, innovations, and relentless commitment to artistry, to expression, to service and growth

that has fueled his story. So excited to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

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This is a little bit different than our normal conversations, which generally happen in our studio in New York City. This is part of what we're calling the LA Sessions. So to our friendly listeners, we are right now in the guitar building workshop of Danny Canetop. It's in Southern California. We're in a room that's sort of garage size plus. Everywhere I look, there are raw slabs of wood. There are guitars in various states of manufacture from super raw to nearly finished, kind of hanging there. Clamps, tools, saws.

Of course, Danny's sitting across from me, smiling. And the minute we opened the door, I walked in and I was struck by the aroma, which is like this blend of sawdust, wood glue, and something that is almost like spiritual. It's just kind of blended with it to make this aromatic cocktail that kind of hits you and you're like, yeah. I need to do more of that. Right? So this has been your devotion, your craft, your living for a lot of years now. What's amazing to me is that as we sit here, you've built guitars for some of the most incredible players in the world. You built this incredible career doing this thing that fills you, nourishes you in so many different ways. And the seed

for this was planted when you were a really little kid, basically. Where does that start to show up? I've thought about that many, many times, about how far it goes back. I have a two-year-old son, and he walks around with a blankie. And I did that growing up, and I went everywhere with that. And I think I was always dependent on an object or something. It was like my source of security.

And later on, when I was like my source of security. And later on when I kind of, when I was like seven or eight, I felt that in the guitar. Like when I first heard the guitar, it was like, oh my God, like that just was like this overall sense of comfort for me. And I think throughout my life, the things that I've been doing, they weren't really about the guitar but because it was like that object of security for me like that was always what i was like unconsciously going for or supporting whether i knew it or not so i was doing all sorts of things as anybody does growing up but the guitar was always like a source of comfort for me. It's like an identity, maybe. Do you recall the first time you heard it?

Yeah, I was driving. I remember it was like the bag of my mom's Toyota Celica. And we were driving. Maybe it was like after school or something. And the sound of a nylon string guitar came on the radio. And I think it was Otmar Liebert, who was like this very smooth jazz type of player who, you know, maybe that was like his time of shine. And then nobody ever heard of him after that. And that sound just like stuck with me. I was like, mom, what is that? You know, like I want to do that. And I think I kept bugging

her because that's what i did you know i was very determined i was a very determined kid to do whatever i had my mindset to and i was like i i that sound is i i didn't know that it was the guitar but there's something about that sound that i heard that just really impacted me um and she's like, well, if we're going to do this, if I do lessons and buy you a student-level guitar or whatever, you have to follow through. She wanted to make sure that was something I definitely wanted to do and not just like a passing.

But yeah, as a kid, I was always into building things. So my mom's a painter. And as long as I can remember, her studio was in the attic. And my dad was an architect. And so I have these two halves of art and design and engineering and building, like, kind of already ingrained in my childhood. So I was always, you know, like school projects for me, if they involved craft, it was like, oh my God, I'm going to like kill this. Nailed it.

Yeah. And I love doing that. Like just spending time on my mom's studio floor. And then I remember my dad, you know, like we would spend our summers in Michigan and he would work and then take the train, like the South Bend train, I think, from Chicago to Michigan. And being that it was like a small cabin in the woods, it was always kind of needing help because nobody would take care of it. So you'd show up and it's like. Put the tool belt on. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was like us kids, we would be having fun, but my dad would show up and like you know get to work and so like early in the morning we would wake up and he'd be an early riser and i would get up too and i would you know see him like sketching out a plan whether it was

like for repairing the deck or building a new part of the dock that needed to be rebuilt. And then he would, you know, draw out like a parts list, a cut list, and then go to the lumber store. And of course, I was a daddy's boy, you know, had to follow him. And, you know, seeing that process of like from a napkin sketch to the store to like a pile of wood to a handsaw to like a deck that was like oh my god like that and that was really young for me when i when all that happened so of course that was like defined who i am yeah in a way and also it sounds like it showed you it gave you this sense of of possibility where it's sort of like okay so something needs to exist that doesn't exist

or something needs to be fixed that, you know, is broken. We'll just figure out how to make it happen. Yeah. You know, that you can, you can actually start from this place of having an idea and make your plan, make your piece, like get, and just slowly take care of it. Like there was a process to take an idea to an actual thing definitely and the process wasn't like i'm gonna go on youtube and find out how this is this was like okay i'm gonna sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and like we're gonna design the solution to it and yeah that was like the time like that's what you did and you and you did it with like

a handsaw and hammer and nails you know um now it's just so crazy and uh i mean i think i'm fortunate to have grown up in you know in the 80s and 90s before all the uh yeah sort of like digital instruction hit and stuff like that yeah i, I mean, I think that's really helped define me and who I am is like that particular time. Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting point because I think now, like you said, I think so many people, they want to learn how to build something

or make something or pick something. First place they go is online. Let me watch a video. Let me check out a tutorial, which is awesome. If all you want to do is get to the outcome, right? But if you actually, if part of your, if part of the thing that drives you is the process of getting there and the joy and the brutality and the struggle and the suffering and the elation of actually figuring it out, it's not necessarily the best thing, actually. There's so much information. It's like you look at one thing, you search on one thing,

and it's just like pages and pages and pages of information. Some of it's great information. Some of it's not so good information. And how do you learn to filter all of that if you know nothing about it? So if you could have like a mentor, you know, like, I feel like for crafting things, my dad was initially that mentor and my mom was the more artistic side of things. So she was also my other mentor, but it was like this perfect blend of both sides. And guitar making is really the uniting of art and engineering and so many other things.

And I think that's one reason why I'm just so engulfed by the power of guitar making, because it's just so many levels of its art and its engineering. And so many people say this, but I think there's so much mysticism in it. I strive to really study and get to know my clients on a deep level because I feel like the energy that I get from that individual changes how I work. So I'm not just doing the same thing over and over again. And I can't define why that happens. Even a client who comes to me and they don't really know the specifics of what they're after in terms of the technicality of specifications. that just make them who they are, like that is what I love to work with and understand because that totally changes the process for me. And like I said, I don't know why and how that happens.

It's just like beautiful. Is that an intentional thing for you at this point? Or do you just notice that in like a hundred little there's something that's happening slightly different as you go through the process of creating this instrument for someone. I kind of hunt it out because it gives me confidence. The deeper I know somebody, the more confident I am that I'm going to just nail the instrument. And it's going to be, you know, this person's best friend. And it's going to grow with them and it's going to inspire them. If there's some kind of block that's put up between me and the client, I often find that I'm kind of, I don't want to say guessing, but sometimes maybe I'm making an instrument that's more for myself because I go back on that, like, what would I do for

myself to make a great instrument? And that's led me, I mean, I've made some great instruments going that route too, but so I think it happens naturally, you mean, I've made some great instruments going that route too. So I think it happens naturally. You know, like when somebody calls me and we start talking, I'll talk to a person for days before they're like, okay, I want to do this. And I think that's like a very natural way of, you know, not to sound businesslike, but obtaining the right kind of client that I have. I mean, I do talk to right kind of client that I have. I do talk to a lot of people that things don't work out, and sometimes I think I'm grateful for that because it wouldn't have been a good situation.

Yeah, I love that you described it also as in some way mystical. It's funny because as I was driving over here this morning, I was thinking to myself, I was like, you know, there are, in my perception, in the process of being a maker, there's sort of like these three levels. There's the mechanic level where you're essentially studying what everyone else has done and you're memorizing it and you're stealing like an artist and you're sort of like, it's a lot of replication and duplication. Yeah. But you get really good at the steps. So you can create an instrument that is really solid, you know, and then there's the master level where it's about, okay, so now you're actually starting to re-engineer and redesign based on what you're seeing in your own ideas.

You're sort of like recreating the process based on now years of accumulated experience and wisdom. And it becomes much more yours and almost a bit less conscious and more sort of like you just sort of in it. And then there are those- You just gave me the chills. I want to ask you about that in a second. And then there are these moments where it rises to the level of mystical experience where you become completely you as a as a separate being become momentarily sometimes lost and just lost in in the pursuit in the in the process in the experience and then part of that when you're you know you're actually also creating this for someone else is it becomes about something bigger too so what you're describing is is kind of to a certain extent i hope validating what was spinning

in my head as i was coming over here through my own process of of making over you know like five decades yeah it's that i mean what you said is the definition of what happens in here on a daily basis. I mean, I like to kind of work with low light because you tend to see more with like one light source. So, it's not a big workshop, but like most of my days if I'm in here, you know, I mean, I have two young kids, I'm not in here eight hours a day, but I, you know, I try to be the amount of flow, the timeless flow that happens because there's so many aspects of building a guitar where, you know, let's say I'm carving a top and that can take me, you know, if I'm working eight hours a day, it can take four days of just carving. And the only way to do it is like sitting over it and carving it. And so there's so much time that goes by.

Sometimes you need to listen to music to get out of your head. And then sometimes you look up and you're like, it's been an hour. Like, where did that go? But you look down and you're like, I just took this from point A to point B. And that's what it's about. It's getting yourself into that flow state. And I think that's where a lot of the mysticism happens. And that's why I think the deeper you know somebody, that stuff comes out whether you're intending it to or not. Sure, it comes

out in the beginning when you're like picking materials and kind of designing the voice, but it's all of those subtleties. It's all about the subtleties it's the little things that i think make it special and make it human like i think a really great instrument grows and absorbs and changes as somebody plays it you could have two identical instruments which is impossible because no two pieces of wood are the same and have have put a guitar into, say, a classical player's hands and then put that other guitar into, let's say, like a heavy metal guitar player's hands and get those two instruments back in a couple months

and they'll sound totally different because they've absorbed just the style and they get used to vibrating a certain way. And so the better the instrument the more capable they are to absorbing what's put into them so that's just you know that just furthers the kind of the the awesomeness of of working for people on that kind of level because you if you do it right you can really change somebody's life and change the pursuit of their musical career or their couch playing yeah and and i

mean i think what's so awesome that also is that um and for everybody around them who hears what they what they offer you know so whether they're playing a concert at a venue where they're sitting in a living room with a bunch of old friends you know i love they're playing a concert at a venue where they're sitting in a living room with a bunch of old friends you know i love the fact that what you create has a series of ripples that go out into the world some large and local and you know and just thousands of people some very intimate but always you know meaningful in so many ways and i think um you know and meaningful in so many ways. And I think, um, you know, and, and a lot of this, you know, there's a, it's interesting cause there's the building side, which I still want to talk more about, but there's also, I mean, you're also a musician.

Yeah. I'd be, I'd be very careful. But, but this is a fascination of mine because, um, like, as you know, I've, I've had a lifelong fascination with guitar and with building guitar. I'm a terrible player, but there's something about the form that I just found so aesthetically like sultry and gorgeous and amazing that I had this thing that I wanted to learn how to build it. Even though I pick up now the guitar that I eventually built and I, By the way, that guitar sounds great because I hear it all the time. Awesome. For those who don't know, it's actually the guitar that is being played on the lead-in

and the lead-out on the podcast these days. Not by me, by a dear friend who's amazing. But the guitar sounds killer. Thank you. But it's interesting because I can't make the guitar that I built with my own hands sound the way that I would love it to sound. But nobody could make your guitar sound the way that you make it sound. True. So much of it is in the hands of the player. I get a lot of people who,

over the course of being in this business, and I think more in Chicago, because in Chicago, there was this closeness of community. And I did repair work, so I'd get a lot of people in. And some people would come in, young people, and say, I want to sound more like this person. I want to sound, you know. And of course, you try to help them and do what needs to be done. But it's in the hands. Like, it doesn't matter what guitar you play, you know. Like, you can play classical music on an electric guitar you can play

jazz on a guitar you find in the alley you know if you do the right things and get it to play it doesn't really matter like it's all in your hands and you listen to the great players and you see it all the time you see players who like players that i listen to now they'll play you know different guitars at different times but they sound the same it doesn't really matter what they're playing sure the tone is kind of colored by whatever instrument they're playing but it's still the sound of them you know and you hear it on the radio like the great players that come on you're like oh that's kenny burrell that's frederick hann that's because instantly like one note it's like that's the human yeah i'll buy that i'll buy that and i think like

we saw that also because in the studio back in new york we have that guitar that i made hanging and we did a month earlier last year where we had a whole bunch of players come through and they played at the end of our conversation. And to the one, they brought their own guitars with them, but they ended up picking up the guitar that I made, which blew me away in the first place because I'm like, please don't do that. You need something better to honor who you are and what you bring to this. And they're like, no, that looks good, man. Let me play it.

But sure enough, it is the soul of the player in their hands. what you bring to this and they're like no that looks good man let me play it and um but sure enough you know it is it is the soul of the player in their hands that come like yeah that that really bring the magic and still there is something so so let me challenge you on this a little bit because it's maybe because it's a curiosity of mine yeah years ago i read a book um i think by noah saint john about this other builder who you know, Wayne Henderson, who's been building for generations. Sure. And he was writing about how this guy would make everybody wait 10 years for a guitar, including Eric Clapton when he wanted one. And he interviewed another builder and he was like, well, what is it that makes an instrument extraordinary?

And I'm blanking on the name of the other guy, TJ something maybe. Thompson. Maybe. And his answer was something like, it's the heart of the builder. You can feel it through the instrument. Like you can feel the builder soul through the instrument. Yeah. Do you believe that?

I 100% believe it. It's the power. You can relate it to so many things, right? You can relate it to chefs. You can relate it to painters. So it takes a lot of things to make a great instrument because at the end of the day, the guitar is a tool, right? So it has to perform and has to do certain things at a high level. The classical guitar world is very on point with that because you hand a classical guitar, it's not balanced or, you know. The last thing they're going to do, let's just say if they really like the tone of the guitar, then they'll turn it around and look at it and start asking questions about the construction and its beauty.

But for them, it's about sound and playability. So that's a huge thing. But the human side of things is because you're working on this object for so long, you know, you have to be careful because there's so many guitar makers out there these days. And I think that point of building where somebody is making a concert level instrument, let's just say that we're talking about a concert level instrument. Like your soul, you're committed to this object, bringing it from raw wood. Like the wood has to be good wood the wood has to be it has to be good wood it has to be musical wood to begin with sure you can make a great guitar out of you know not so great pieces of wood but the the more i think the more special the ingredients are

and the more you respect them throughout the process, the end result is it's going to encompass everything. It's going to encompass the conversations that you've had. It's going to encompass that builder's life because whatever they do is a representation of their experience of life and you're building this living thing. So, that sense of like that person's life is in that piece of work, you know? Like Van Gogh, like you look at his work and his work is just, it's mesmerizing the more you look at it. It's powerful And you can kind of see the hardship he had in the way that his brushstrokes were, his manicness, but that's also what makes it so great. And so, I find that when I look at somebody's work and I can see that, and I'm talking about guitars here, and I can see the depth of the person, of the maker in that instrument, have a response for that and it's it's it's deep it's if i can look at an instrument from a builder and hear it in my head that's a very cool thing and what's even cooler is that i can look at an instrument i'm like i don't understand it and then

i pick it up and it's something totally different and it's like, and it works, then it just screws with my head. I'm like, okay, why, what's going on here? Like, why does this work? And what am I not understanding? And then the questions start going and then I start questioning my own work. But it is deep. You know, it has to, on a human level, I think if you're doing any project where you're spending all these hours and time committed to one thing from birth to completion, and then it continues to live without you, there has to be some sort of, I know it sounds weird, but there's some energy going on there. It does sound weird, and I completely agree with you and get it. There's like a juju that gets built into the guitar. Definitely juju.

And I agree. I feel like you can feel it, and it blends with and dances with the juju that the player then infuses with it over a period of months and years. Yeah. And it's never entirely one person's or the other person's. It's like this perpetual dance. What's fascinating to me about this is also that, so you're creating something that will in all likelihood or has the potential to live beyond your lifespan, beyond the original person who commissioned this and said, I want you to create this for me beyond their lifespan, maybe many generations of lifespan. So you're creating something that is a deep expression of your soul, your artistry, your essence that goes out into the world and has this ability

to just keep getting passed on from generation to generation to generation. There's a little bit of immortality built into that. to just keep getting passed on from generation to generation to generation. There's a little bit of immortality built into that. There is. Your look is like, dude, that's too trippy. I can't even go there. Of course you think about that. That's part of one of the kickers of being so inspired by, there's so much gratification in this work because your hope is to always make

an instrument that's just glorious, you know? And to the point where when you're finishing an instrument, for me, there's always a point in the process where it's no longer mine, it becomes somebody else's. And that usually takes place when I put the neck on the guitar and it's kind of coming together. And then I'm like just filling a role to like, you know, pass it on. But that sense of immortality does creep in, but that's just adds to the gratification of, of the work. It's like, okay, this is, it's just awesome. It's really awesome. And then the other thing is, is okay. Now this is done.

How can I do it better? And like, how can I, so this ongoing, it just never seems to like not be gratifying because as you go forth, there are always things that you're questioning and new things come up or you see a guitar that you did like 10 years ago and you're like, man, that sounds good. Okay, that worked out better than I thought it did.

And, you know, it's just, it's very gratifying. There it did and you know it's just it's very gratifying there's this you know you mentioned something um a minute ago about getting back to like the the human touch in it and the absorption of other people and all that i made a guitar for bobby broom he's a chicago jazzist. And I made him a guitar and I saw it a couple of years later. He brought it in for me to do some work on. And I pulled it out of the case and it still had strings on it when I got it. And I played it and I called him on the phone. I was like, Bobby, this guitar sounds like you. That hasn I didn't really, like, that hasn't happened a lot to me where I've experienced that feeling. But no joke, the sound that I know Bobby from recordings and

listening to him, because I listened to Bobby when I was a kid, I went to the Green Mill as a kid with my mom to hear Bobby. That sound was in the guitar. I was like, oh my God, that was a life-changing experience for me. And that's something that I didn't physically say, hey, I'm going to make this guitar. So it's going to, I did do that. I did things to make it work for Bobby, but not like that. That was a cool moment.

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The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. We're sitting here talking about all this sort of nuanced stuff.

Probably makes sense to take a step back in time also because I'm guessing some people are like, how does 37-year-old guy from Chicago end up becoming this master guitar builder living in LA? What is the path to that in a day where it seems especially like working with your hands, artistry, a devotion, a decades-long devotion to craft and making is something that is either going away or going digital. So let's take a step back in time. We talked about the fact that really early, seven, eight years old, you get exposed to just the idea of the guitar and taking lessons and being a player. At some point, I guess it was not too long after that, a couple of years after that, you started to, where does the curiosity drop where you're like, I want to make one of these.

I mean, we know your mom's an artist and your dad is in architecture. You have the resources swirling around you to help figure it out. But when does that switch flip? It came about, so I was always a player. Like I started, like the first, I don't know, like I kind of studied guitar up to into my 20s.

And during high school, so I was playing from, I think I started taking lessons when I was seven. And I quit for a couple of years. I had terrible performance anxiety. So during high school, Maggie Daly, the wife to mayor, there was a block downtown that was just vacant. And instead of building something, which it's all built up now, but at the time she devoted that as to a program called Gallery 37. So they employed high school students and paid them minimum wage to do anything art-related. So they had mural painting, furniture painting, music, performance, dance.

You know, it was acting. It was amazing. Writing was amazing. So for two years, I did painting. I did, I painted benches, like city benches with like art and murals. And my brother, and he started playing drums around the same time as me. It was kind of simultaneously. And my brother went on to become like a really great jazz percussionist. And that really did like help push me. And he introduced me to jazz.

So while I was doing painting, he was doing the big Latin jazz band. And I was like, oh my God, I just want to do that. And I was, my chops weren't good enough. And so after I did, so that was like when I was a junior, I did the Latin band and that was like my end. And then when I did that, I was, I kind of Latin band. And that was like my in. And then when I did that, I kind of went back. I was like, throughout this time, I knew I wanted to learn more about the guitar.

Like my mind was taking it apart. Like, you know, I was already studying the parts in my head, even though I didn't know what I was doing. My mind was already there. It's like the maker in you is not, it's just kind of like teasing you almost. Like, how does this work exactly and i was also like i was kind of like thinking about money too like and that was part of me like because you know there were things that i liked and i knew that if i wanted them like my mom was like if if you want something, you need to figure out how to pay for it and get it. And so I had this idea of I was like, I can make money doing this. So, I kind of researched it and my dad was kind of interested in it too. So, we had ordered catalogs and the more I dug deeper, the more I kind of fell in love with instead of ordering these parts, I can make the parts like and then I can paint it. And I went downtown to the

library, and they had a shelf full of books on guitar making, and I got every single one of them. And I just went home and just totally absorbed all the information. Were you some, I'm curious, were you somebody who before that point, in any other sort of academic topic, you would have just gotten every book on the subject and devoured them? Or was this unusual for you? It's kind of unusual for me. I think if it was something that I was interested in, then I would have. I was very much into science, but I've never been a big book person.

Right. But there was something about this where anything I can read, I'm going to read. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'll sleep with the books. Like, I'll know this book from start to finish. And that kind of was the entry point into starting the first guitar with my dad. And we kind of did it together.

My neighbor was a toy designer. And he had, like, a mill in his basement and a lathe and like all these tools. So we turned this like small closet in my basement into like a little workshop. We built a small bench and between like that tiny closet and my neighbor's like mill machine, me and my dad like put together our first guitar. And that was it. How long did that take you? Because you're sort of experimenting and figuring out and learning along the way. It's hard for me to think about the amount of time it took.

We built a semi-hollow guitar and had pickups. And I didn't know anything about electronics. I was kind of scared at that point, which is kind of funny. So, I took it to a shop and that I remember really clearly because when I took it there with my dad, the guy who was working at the shop was just like, oh my god, you made this? Like he passed away um and that like you know that to me was like the chapter of my life where it was my life before and my life after and that that guitar was like you know the thing that was the tying thing between the past and what happened then. Cause literally I think it was the day before I got it back. Um,

he passed away and it's hard for me now to put time together. Like my dad's passing really like, I think clouds my time judgment. Like it's hard for me to remember like like, how much time did that take? Or when did this happen? Because it was such like a life-changing event for me. And that happened in 2000. I was a junior in high school.

So I think for the next 10 years, I was just like an angry kid who didn't really know what to do. Was, I mean, clearly that was, you know, you go through this experience where you, you know, you work with your dad, you know, like side by side, hand in hand for what I'm guessing was probably weeks, if not months to create this one first thing, which must have been just a beautiful experience to start with. And then create something which is kind of stunning and then almost immediately after to lose him abruptly. I think people can respond to that in so many different ways, but because he and your time with him were so closely associated with what had just unfolded, I almost wonder if you experienced the idea of stepping back into the workshop to continue to build more of these. On the one hand, you could see that as, I'll never do this again because I can never match that one unique experience I had with him. On the other hand, you might frame it as, but it's like every time I step back into the workshop and work on something,

it's like he's with me again. Yeah. And that's exactly how I went with it. And I don't think I knew that's what I was doing, but that's what I did. Like I just dove in. Definitely there was some time there where I didn't really know what was happening. I was trying to figure things out. But my comfort was in working in a shop, working in the basement, that whether I knew it or not, that's where I felt the comfort of it. And that's where I continue to feel the connection with my dad. I don't want to sound weird, but there's definitely been weird things

that I've experienced where it's like, I know I, not only do I know that he's like extremely proud of what I'm doing, but I feel his presence. I feel there's been times where I asked my dad for help and like, I'll leave the shop and I'll come back the next day and things will be, things will be good. And I mean, that's, that gives leave the shop and I'll come back the next day and things will be good. And, I mean, that gives me the chills.

I'm constantly asking my dad for help. You know, I really believe that before he died, he told my mom that he wanted to quit his job and work on guitars with me. And I didn't know that till a long time after. I don't know, like, you know, it's, we don't talk about things as much as we should. And so this came up, I was like, really? He said that? And that kind of just was like, of course he said, like, that makes total sense. And, and then as soon as I knew that, that was just like very empowering for me to hear. And I know that if he were here, we would be doing this together. But I'm also grateful.

People ask me, you know, if you went back and could change things, would you? And it's like, I wouldn't because my instruments are that experience. It's what I went through. I don't think I'd be here right now with what I do and who I am without that experience it's what i've went through i don't think i'd be here right now with what i do and who i am without that experience i mean that that really like if there's one thing that really defines my life like unfortunately it's kind of the it's that moment and that led me down i think deeper into the guitar making process it led led me into the violin world, further into like searching for more. And at the same time, I was still always questioning. It was a very difficult time. Like my twenties, after my dad died, I was depressed. I didn't

really know what I was doing. I was doing guitar performance. I still was very deep in the instrument and learning about the instrument, but I wasn't actively, I didn't have a business banking guitars. So I did guitar performance. That was a whole nightmare because I'm not a performer, but I got to study with a world renowned guitar player at SUNY at Purchase. And I was there for almost two years studying classical guitar. And so I got to study these, just get to be around the most amazing instruments, hearing the most amazing musicians play them like in my face and making me cry. From that, I came back to Chicago because it was a very dark place for me. And I took some time off. Dark because you were still processing what happened with your dad or just for other reasons?

Yeah. I mean, it was, it was everything it was. I was processing what was going on cause that was still really fresh. Uh, but you know, it was, it was an art school in the middle of nowhere with, with New York state troopers, you know, busting us for, you know, smoking pot and getting in trouble. So all my friends got kicked out of school. I was actually one of the only guitar players there that my teacher was coming to teach. He would come from the city to come teach me lessons. So it was a huge amount of pressure on me. And our lessons consisted of

like getting my fear out of the equation like i could practice and i could study but my level of just performance anxiety was just inhibiting for me to like perform and so i remember lessons we had where he was like it's not about you the biggest lesson i learned from friend hand he said it's not about you. Like, people who want to hear your music, you're here as a doorway. If you're nervous about not being prepared, that's on you. You can control that. But the anxiety that you have about performing, about being on stage, he's like, it's not about you. Like, it's about the music and representing like somebody else's music for the

people. So you have nothing to be nervous about. And as he's saying these words, like the New York sunset is just like melting in the sky. And we both look because it's like impossible not to look at. He's like, it's that. I'll remember that till, you know, that's just an amazing memory. So coming from that, I took some time off back in Chicago. I think my mom was happy because she, you know, she knew what was going on. And then I kind of stumbled into Columbia College Design School. And that was like a total brush of fresh air because I met with the head of the department there and he also played guitar and he, he kind of knew what I was into.

Cause we sat and talked about it for a while. And he's like, I can help you. I'll be, if you through our program of product design, like we can support your interests and we can kind of explore the world of guitar making. He was excited too.

Right. And I was like, oh my God. He's like, I'll pay you to come here because this sounds cool to me. Yeah. It was just so amazing. It was so amazing. I mean, there are days that go by and I'm like, man, I wish I was still in studio class, like doing product design because it was so fun.

I mean, it was everything that I had done. It was sketching, problem solving, studio class, and doing ideations with a class full of people, prototyping, working on machining, studying CAD work, and everything. It was everything that guitar making had in it. And I spent two summers doing independent studies, focusing on guitar guitar making and I needed a mentor and it just so happens that Chicago is like one of the biggest centers of violin making and Michael Darden who I ended up studying with for a long time he was a couple blocks away he's sort of a legendary not just repair like luthier repair person but creator in that space yeah he's i don't know of a bigger genius what he can see and what he can do with his hands i i'm just completely in awe

and at that point on it was like i want to learn as much as i can from from him um and to this day it's like i feel like every instrument i do i want to make michael proud like i want to have like i'm so far away from him but if i were still in chicago i think i would take an instrument to him every time i was done and be like tell me what you think and i got to work on just amazing instruments and that kind of turned into a job with him after college because i just kept going back and kept going back and at the time they were doing a large repair or like a rental service so that it'd just be constant setups and bridge carving and sound posted like just all and i mean at one point you get your

hands on a violin made by like the most famous violin maker cello cello yeah right um stradivarius yeah um which is amazing that um your mentor who is the person who like somebody brought this to to work on but then turned to you and sort of like offer you the opportunity to work on this thing which is what from the 1700s maybe yeah it was, I think it was from the 16... I think it was from like 1693. Right. So this is an instrument which has been around for centuries, made by the most legendary maker ever. You talked about having performance anxiety. This is not performing, but when you get an instrument like that in your hands and somebody invites you to work on it, I mean, knowing the history of it, knowing the pedigree of it, knowing the, you know, like people who have played this through

decades in different settings and what this, what this instrument represents, was that all spinning through your head? It's so funny that you say that because now it should have been, but I think the way that I handled it is the way that Fred is what Fred was saying, because now that I'm thinking about it, I definitely felt the mojo, the juju, but I think I knew how important it was. And I didn't ask about how much it was worth or anything. I just knew what was in front of me and I knew what had to be done. And I entered the ring and I did it. And I think Michael knew the power of that moment. I think he's as great of a master he is. I think he's an even better teacher. And like, I think that's one of those moments where he knew exactly what he was doing.

And the cello was always like my thing. Like I was doing a lot of work on violins, but to this day, like I was just, my head was always in the cello. Like I was, you know, we had them open all the time and i was doing them and he always loved the bridges that i would carve and so the period before that cello came to my bench he would just see these bridges and he'd be like like he was kind of mad at me because he's like i've been doing this for 30 years and and you've been doing it for you you know, a couple. He's like, these bridges are, he was impressed at the bridges I was carving. So he had full confidence in me. I wasn't thinking that far ahead of me about confidence or anything. I was just like, okay, I can't, I can't screw this up.

But in his mind, he sort of, the signal he was sending was, you're ready. Like, I trust you with an instrument like this. Yeah. And that was the transmission that was really happening in a sort of subtext level. Yeah. And it was successful. Yeah. It like went out.

And I don't know the business details, but I'm pretty sure that it sold with my setup on it. And I mean, I know my setup isn't on it now because it changed, you know, that world, it changes so often. Um, but that was a, that was a highlight. You, I mean, you're working for him, you're learning this craft. Um, this is coming up on like 2008, 2009. We all know what happens in the recession heads, especially in that business. It hit it pretty hard yeah um so you end up essentially looking for work again but instead of saying well let me see who can hire me you're like so what happened in your brain that said no it's time for me to step out as like my

own brand my own offering like i am the builder and say no you know it's time for you know like danny the guitar maker to actually say i'm like i'm open for business as me well going into the violin world i was questioning whether i was doing the right thing because i was afraid it was going to take away from the guitar and me and all along i knew it was just like fueling the fire in the most glorious way so when it happened we were all sitting around the shop like kind of crying because it was like the family it was me michael and greta we had been working together for four years and it was just really sad we thought it was a joke and they came in and said you know we have to let you guys go and we kind of started laughing we're like no we're serious like you can

keep showing up but we can't pay you and so i kept showing up for a while uh but that was like you know i don't want to say the cliche of things happen for a reason, but I, the way that my life has been, it's hard for me to not say that because so many things have been just so like in place in a way like that happened. And then I was like, okay,

like I, it was almost like it kind of defined my future. I like, did I, do I even have to ask the questions? Like, okay, no. And kind of defined my future. Like, do I even have to ask the questions? Like, okay, no. And that's defined my instruments. The fact that I come from that world and now make archtop guitars,

I feel like that makes my instruments so much more unique than the other world of archtop guitar makers. It's weird because the archtop guitar was designed in like the early 20th century as modeled from the violin world. But it's so far, like even the beginning was so far from what actually is happening in a violin and cello. It's like the complete opposite. So I think in a really ironic way, me coming from the violin and cello world

has made my instruments unique. Maybe it's because they come from like the Chicago school, but I'm just so grateful that was my past and that actually it took that path. You know, I took six years off from guitar making to study violins and cellos and and work in that world and little did you know all the while you were actually really studying guitar building yeah so so when i got laid off i put every single unemployment check into you know like i had semi trucks coming to my mom's house, dropping off like, you know, huge machines that would just go into my basement. And it was just, yeah, thank you. Thank you, unemployment.

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Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. So you're in Chicago, you're sort of like, you're, you're, you're building things. Everything is, you're sort of like gaining momentum, building steam in the, in the middle of this all, um, there's a big disruption. Yeah. So you pick up and move to LA. Tell me what this was about and, and also how that experience sort of like affected you, your state of mind and what you did after that.

I met my wife in 2007. She was born in Los Angeles. And we kept toying with the idea of moving to the West Coast. And it came the time in like 2011, we kind of made the decision that she needed to be close to her parents. They kind of needed help. And I was just like, yeah, California, let's do it. And I had started a business in Chicago.

I had a storefront. So things were kind of building momentum. But it was a big move. We had to get a semi-truck and fill it with machinery and tools and wood. And it was just a nightmare. So literally, I had to close my doors and move everything to Los Angeles. And I didn't have a workshop. I had to build a workshop. That's where we are now. And that took a long time. It took from when we decided to move to when my

workshop was completed, it was maybe two years. So I wasn't really working, but that time off was just instrumental in everything. I feel like not being allowed to work in my shop led me to re-digest everything I had done. I went back to the drawing board and reconfigured everything to where I thought it should be. I felt like I was doing work that wasn't subpar, but it wasn't truly me. It wasn't what I'd truly learned from the violin shop. It was the stuff that I did after getting off from the violin shop and working was just like, okay, I got to do this. But now the time off was like this reset where I could throw everything on a blackboard and look at it from the ground up and redesign it in a sense that was like truly where I wanted to be. And so that time off was like the most amazing thing for my work.

Yeah. It's sort of that incubation period that, I mean, it's interesting because I think ordinarily we never allow ourselves that. It's sort of like heads down, pay the rent, do the thing that we're here to do. And every once in a while, we'll carve out a heartbeat to step outside of working in the business to work on the business or the craft or the pursuit of mastery, whatever it may be. But it's like those pauses inevitably, whether they're imposed because we want to or just because of circumstance. If we look at them as windows of opportunity, which isn't always easy to do. No. But if we have the ability to do that, they can be transformational.

And it was. My instruments were, I kind of threw out everything and started over again. And it's hard to do that when you're in the flow, right? Yeah. Did people, two questions, I guess. Were the instruments that you were making after that window in your mind meaningfully different? And if the answer to that is yes, did people other than you notice? I think the answer is yes, but I think I might be the only one to notice.

I don't think anybody would notice unless they had a really close connection to instruments of my past and instruments to my future i have clients with multiple instruments but i don't think they span that's that switch for me it's night and day i feel like the instruments i was doing before had connections to other people and other designs. And when I redesigned everything, it was purely original. It was all for me. So it's like there's the before, the same way that you had that point of demarcation when your dad passes. There's life before and life after it seems like this was a similar thing in terms of

your craft and what you ended up stepping into and saying like this is now like this is a hundred percent this is all danny yeah um and this is like the a much fuller expression of who i am what i believe and what i make hundred percent yeah yeah and love it. To then also sort of like do the dance and say, okay, so now I have to support myself and maybe eventually a family. Yeah. Doing this can be pretty crushing for some people coming from the background that you came from yeah i was gonna say i'm still trying to figure that out yeah it's um yeah i mean the hardest part for me was definitely figuring out how to balance the

business and the art and i still try to figure that that out. It's a constant thing. It's not a field where, you know, you have a plethora of funds coming in, you know, and it's a challenge. It's a challenge because for me as a builder, I feel like I'm always going down the wormhole. I'm always going extra far to dive, to make an instrument that better represents the person I'm working for. But at the same time, the project is getting more time and more energy. And I don't make money for that, but that's the importance of the craft for me. In the end, it's always rewarded me. In the end, my instruments are always my marketing or always like i don't pay for

for marketing anymore because i found that was just a waste of money it's the instruments that i put out and so there's it's a very challenging business and i feel like you have to ride that the middle like really hard because you don't want to be too much of a business where you lose you lose the mystical art i feel like that needs to to be the leading runner and as long as you can keep it going the business is there and that's i think the model for me that that's the true model for my business it's also me gaining self-confidence. I think ever since then, it's like, okay, this is what I can now charge for my work. It's at this level. The self-confidence thing was a big deal. When I first got laid off, I was just trying to get

out there and everybody, my old bosses were like, you have no business selling your guitars. What you're doing, you cannot do this. You're just burying yourself into a hole. And they were right. But at the same time, I needed to do that to get instruments out. So I think there's many different ways to go down, you know, to go through the business.

And you see it now with so many guitar makers out there doing different things. And this is the way that I choose because the art side of it is so important to me and the connecting between myself and another person is the realness for me like it's a natural thing that i only i have like maybe two years out of orders and i that's amazing. And I feel like that's a natural border because nobody really wants to wait longer than that. But it's always been two years. It's always been there. So, I can sit and stress out about what's going to happen after two years from now. But if I have the confidence and know that if I just do the work and do the good work, it's going to be there.

And so, that's kind of been my viewpoint is to just focus on now. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting also, because what you do and who you serve is the diametric opposite of so much of what we're told we have to do and who we have to serve to quote succeed in the world of having our own business especially these days for people who are entrepreneurs or founders or craft people or professionals which is that you know you're always told it's all about scale you know and it's all about taking like your knowledge and selling that. And for some people, if that in fact is the thing that joneses them, awesome, do it. But I mean, the fascinating thing is the work that you do is the exact opposite of scale.

Like by definition, you're creating something which is intensely artistic and unique and bespoke. And, you know, that is the beautiful thing about that is that it's, you don't need, this is not about scale. This is about a microcosm of people who want and can pay you and love what you create and will wait two years to get it. You know, it's a handful of people in the entire universe. It is. That's all you need for you to basically sit here and do the thing that you wake up in the morning and just love to do. That's it. It's not about, I mean, you know, the thought goes through my head about, you know, what I would do with more money, you know, like maybe I'd hire a nanny. But yeah, it's like I said, it's a balance because you do need the money to support a family, to pay for daycare, to pay for living in Los Angeles,

which isn't cheap. But everybody I talk to who is, you know, successful doing this, who, you know, and they've been doing it for a long time and maybe they're towards, you know, the ends of their career, they say, well, is, you know, if you can afford to keep doing it, you're doing the right thing. I'm happy when I, when I work, that's the happiest, you know, for me, like being able to do what I'm doing is like my Zen, it's my meditation. I'm working on the other aspect of my life when I'm not working to do those meditations to balance that off. Because doing this type of work while living in Los Angeles with a young family, you know, it's stressful. And so that's a real challenge that I face that I am working on now. Yeah. So

it's interesting. It's always dynamic. This has been, source of constant flow and constant happiness. But it's not all glory because I've made every single mistake in the book. There are days where my wife Anjali, she's like, I can't talk to you until you figure this out. I'll come in to you like, what happened? And so it's about making every single mistake in the book. And now I'm at the point where I know not to freak out as much as I usually do because I've gone through the mistakes. And those mistakes are also what makes things great, I think. So learning how to ride the wave and to you know be open yeah it's funny as you're saying that um that conversation i had years ago with somebody kind of down the road from here three hours down the road from here in San Diego, Bob Taylor, who took the other path.

You know, he has, I toured their campus with seven buildings and they are, I think, the world's largest handmade guitar builder right now, like in massive volume, massive scale. And this was before I had learned to make my first guitar. And I told Bob, I really wanted to do this. And I was just waiting for like the right moment to go and work with a builder to teach me how and he's like don't do that it's like just make one really bad guitar and then another and then another and another he's like you will learn more by doing that like by making the mistakes yourself and then understanding why the process is what it is and how to do it differently in the future, then you'll ever learn by following it. Somebody else's sort of like instructions

and doing it. That doesn't mean it's fun or easy along the way while you're stumbling and falling on your face. And especially when you make the decision that, you know, this is also going to be not just my devotion, but my living. You know, I think what you said is just so poignant in that I think for a lot of people who make that choice, there almost is no there there. It's just a constant dance of trying to figure out how do I honor this thing that's inside of me that has to get out? And at the same time, honor the commitments that I feel I've made to my family and to my community and stuff like this. And sometimes we do a great job

and sometimes not so much. And hopefully over time, it gets better and better. We have good days and we have bad days. But at the end of the day, I mean, sitting here with you now in this workshop as the sun is streaming through the window, the lights are low, having conversation, taking in like this just rich texture that's all around us. And knowing that you're doing this thing now for, you know,

a dozen years now, sort of like on your own and creating these instruments where again, it's like you're putting your soul into it, you expressing who you are and at the same time we talked about the fact that each piece that goes out is sort of a a representation of you and your legacy but you know like and coming full circle it's really this is you working alongside with your dad and each instrument also it's it's you and him yeah yeah dan was just pointing the picture of his dad right in the uh workshop right there so it's like this is to a certain extent your this is your artistry but also your way of keeping both you and him alive together yeah amen i just i couldn't i couldn't do anything else, I feel like.

I would just be miserable. If I did something else, yeah, it would have to be the only greater thing I can think of is doing something with my kids. That would be a new chapter or something. But my mind would always be in this space. Maybe that's the ultimate answer to scale, right? It's like, hey, kids. Well, so my daughter works in here and she's amazing because she'll sit and she has the focus of it's amazing.

She can sit at a bench for an hour and just work. My son, on the other hand, is just, he'll go around and, and you need to watch him at every, like, I don't allow him in the shop basically. But we named my son after my dad, Kurt, and he's so me that it's annoying. Like I really see a new window into my past in a kind of a scary way but i have a lot of uh i just think that i'll be working with somebody named kurt you know in the future which is just a kind of a dream come true i'm not going to pressure him but you know i have a strong feeling towards that it's just it would be a dream come true. Yeah, a little foreshadowing.

Yeah. Feels like a good place for us to come full circle too. So sitting here in your workshop in the temporary container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life, I think, means having both feet in this time and now. Having incredible patience and honesty in this moment. Because I think the past is what makes you, but it's the present moment that defines who you are. And we're not promised anything.

You know, tomorrow we may not be are and we're not promised anything you know tomorrow we may not be here and we don't know and that's what matters to love yourself to have self-confidence and if there's anything to leave behind it's leave nothing but happiness and inspiration for other people thank you you're welcome thank you thank you so much for listening and thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible you can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes and while you're at it if you've ever asked yourself what should i do with my life we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will

help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode

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