Matt Artinger Interview

by Rick Landers.

On our way to the Martin Guitar Company in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, Modern Guitars took a detour down a country road near Emmaus, to find the one-man shop of custom luthier, Matt Artinger. Matt met us in his driveway before leading us to his shop where he has staged his fine woods, inlay, tools, forms, clamps, glues, and other necessities that allow him to design and craft his exceptional guitars.

Matt's one of those easy going guys with an abundance of spirited enthusiasm and good humor, that makes you feel at home. Another thing we liked about him is, the guy absolutely loves guitars. His guitar building journey started out in his parents' basement. Today, more than a decade later, Artinger's built his own custom home, complete with a lower level area to house his very impressive shop.

Artinger guitars are as much about music as they are about artistic intent. The craftsmanship is without equal, the designs a mix of tradition and subtle elegance, and the tonal qualities precise and balanced. Before Matt reached the ripe old age of 30, the Martin Guitar Company worked with him to introduce the Special Edition Martin OMC Artinger 1 model, as well as to collaborate on other projects, including several "one-off" guitars for NAMM shows.

The original intent of our visit to Artinger Guitars was for photographer, Michael G. Stewart, to ask Matt to put a strap button on the tail of his own Artinger axe. Once we got to Matt's workshop, we had a chance to check out some guitars that were works in progress, including some fine archtops. As we checked out his shop, it became evident that we shouldn't pass up the opportunity to grab an interview.

Before we left Artinger's shop, Michael's guitar was set to go and the Michael and Matt began to come up with ideas for another Custom Artinger to meet Michael's musical interests.

We would later talk to Matt about his more recent projects. He was pumped about a guitar he was building for himself, where he marshaled the artistic talents of "Nub" of Nub Graphics, paint-meister of Custom Motorcycles built by Orange County Choppers. Nub and Matt have become friends and both have worked with the Martin Guitar Company on several projects. Matt's guitar has some unique features, but the most visually striking is the '50s styled pinstriping by Nub.

Rick Landers: Hey Matt, along with the interview, we'll want to take some shots of your work space and some of these guitars. Any guitars that you'd prefer that we not photograph for this?

Matt Artinger: Not necessarily. There’s nothing top secret here. But, I do have a couple that you might like. This is a customer instrument that I’m just finishing up. I actually had this one flown back in. Just to uh…

Rick: To die for.

Matt: Yeah, just to have back. I needed an excuse to get a guitar back.

Rick: Okay, so what’s the blue or turquoise, what’s the color called?

Matt: It’s called "Hawaiian Ice." It’s a color that my finisher Dave Mansel formulated. He’s also the finisher for McNaught guitars in North Carolina. They work together. So, I’ve been using David for about three years now.

Rick: And the pickups are?

Matt: The pickups are Duncans. I’ve actually been using Duncans for about nine years now. I do use a couple of different types of pickup makers, Jason Lollar is the main one and I use quite a few Peter Florence Voodoo pickups. But, primarily in my initial experimenting with pickups and just getting used to the way they react with my guitars, I’m very comfortable with the Seymour Duncans and how to manipulate my guitars around them.

Rick: These are P-90s?

Matt: Those are P-90s.

Rick: And I see the inlay. Did you do that?

Matt: Mhmm.

Rick: And this guitar?

Matt: This guitar is a Venetian hollow body. All mahogany with binding.

Rick: What’s the color called?

Matt: Actually, we had mimicked a Gibson cherry color off of an SG. It was a particular guitar that the customer owned and we wanted to duplicate the same color.

We do a lot of that, actually. The palette for finishing is pretty open in the way that I do things. I don’t have certain set colors that I use or anything. I actually encourage a lot of clients to find their favorite burst in a magazine or find certain instruments.

Rick: And try to emulate that?

Matt: And try to emulate that finish. Obviously, every piece of wood takes finish differently. But, it gives us a basis to really go off the tangent with different colors.

Rick: What artists are using your guitars?

Matt: Right now, I think one of my primary artists that are out on the road the most is Steve Kimock, former member of a lot of The Grateful Dead era bands. He’s actually become a close friend over the past several years. He only lives about 20 minutes away, close to Martin Guitars.

Rick: Really? I’m gonna have to give him a call.

Matt: Yeah, he moved back from San Francisco area about five years ago. He grew up here in the Bethlehem area and his family is still here. He was having a child at that point and wanted to kind of get back close to the family. So, he moved back here and got a nice house and a barn to put a studio in.

Rick: Yeah, it’s a nice quiet and simple life up here.

Matt: He’s actually taught me quite a bit over the past several years, things that I wouldn’t typically even notice or consider on a guitar. He’s definitely got a unique view on things and just seeing his collection of guitars and how he has every guitar set up completely different from the others. It’s a really neat insight into what a professional player that has more of an intuitive sense of his instruments prefers on each individual guitar. It’s not that he tries to take every guitar and set it up exactly the right way.

Rick: The same way for himself, it’s for…

Matt: Right, for himself. He sometimes lets the instrument dictate its nature and dictate its personality, which can lead to all different types of things.

Rick: Like what?

Matt: Certain instruments have higher action, certain instruments have lower action, certain instruments actually have a pretty heavy radius to the board. But, he actually sets the strings on a flat plane and it really goes all over the map. It all makes sense in its own way. It’s just a unique take on things.

Rick: When did you move to this shop?

Matt: About five years ago.

Rick When did you start building guitars?

Matt: I started building guitars in 1997.

Rick: How old were you then?

Matt: I was 19 at that point. Last year was my tenth anniversary in business.

Rick: Congratulations. It’s a hard business.

Matt: Thank you. I feel really fortunate, actually. In hindsight, I think I got a lot of exposure early on just being a fairly young builder in a, more or less, a family of builders who were anywhere from their mid-30s to late 50s. I was a kind of an odd ball already in the sense in that I was already trying to get out there and get in the same circles as those builders, as a teenager.

Rick: You mean family members were actually building guitars and…

Matt: No, I mean the guitar making family in general.

Rick: Oh, okay within this area and then you got more…

Matt: Well, within the country itself. It’s only, I think, a fairly recent phenomenon that it’s blossomed into more and more young builders getting into the market place. It didn’t used to be that way. I think it’s just a by-product of the industry growing in a lot of ways.

Rick: The next generation from the folks that grew up say, in the late '60s early '70s, like Chuck Erikson and Bob Givens, if you’ve heard of them?

Matt: Yeah. It’s neat seeing the Baby Boomer generation of guitar builders and the X generation and the Y generation of guitar builders. We all have pretty different takes on things, even though we’re all kind of basing our ideas and our instruments off the same loose traditional philosophies.

We all have very unique individual takes on what really brings the guitar together properly. And the more instruments you make, the more familiarized you get with the characteristics and manipulability of your personal instruments that you’re building for people. So that’s the key, having a design that you can really, over time and over different clients having different tastes and different needs.

Rick: Different mutations…

Matt: You really learn how to take an individual set of goals and actually come to that goal.

Rick: I see on this guitar you’ve got a tailpiece a lot like you’d see on an archtop. How did that come about, as opposed to a typical stop tailpiece?

Matt I started that when I was 17. I built my first archtop guitar. After that I started building bigger body guitars for a brief period and through that I took a lot of notice to the limitations of some of the bigger boxed guitars. I started gradually honing the guitars down and down and down into more versatile, more all around guitars and they kind of just morphed themselves into what they are now, rather than just coming up with complete separate designs. It’s just been an evolution of things. So, the archtop tailpiece really comes from my origins of starting out building archtop guitars.

Rick: And you said you did inlay work for Martin?

Matt: I do.Yeah, I do anything from custom shop designs that clients draw up and request, to if they’re in need of certain limited runs of certain head plates or pick guards and things like that. Then I’ll turn that around for them too.

Rick: So, these aren’t standard Martin designs you’re actually…

Matt: No, some of them are. It really ranges. I do anything from people’s personal signatures down to some of their standard designs that they’re not getting in mass runs. Normally, they work with larger automated pearl companies that do larger runs of things. But, sometimes with their custom shop they might have a unique request of materials or unique request of how they want it laid out. That’s where guys like me come in.

Rick: How did you learn to master inlay work?

Matt: Yet again, it’s just been an evolution. Ninety-nine percent of my knowledge in guitar building has come from the school of hard knocks, learning as I go.

Rick Using old guitars to play around with?

Matt: Yeah, I started buying junker guitars, I think when I was about 11 or 12 and was more interested in ripping them apart than I was in actually playing them. So, I’ve always been on the technical end of things, rather than being a player by nature.

I am a player, but I was one of those types of kids that if my mom had a cake mixer that was to break down, that would be my fantasy to just grab that mixer and take it apart and see.

Rick: And then break it down more.

Matt: Break it down more, take the motors out of it. I was always really an intuitive, hands-on type of kid. So, it was only natural that when I got my first guitar I wanted to take it apart and see what made it tick.

So, that’s more or less evolved into what I do. I’ve just been really fortunate that I’ve been able to make a living out of it. I think a lot of guys that are doing things on the same level that I’m doing things, just by luck and not necessarily by skill, are either making a living or not making a living by doing it. It’s just a lot of opportunity that presents itself and I’ve been fortunate to have some of that opportunity present itself to me.

Rick: How has your business grown? How do you approach this as a business? Because there are people that have started in garages and stuff like Paul Reed Smith and a few others, and very few have managed to build a business that’s thriving. So, how are you actually helping, from a business perspective, evolving your business from a word of mouth type of thing to where you are today?

Matt: Believe it or not, I’ve actually taken nearly the opposite philosophy of most guys in my position when they were in my position. I think there’s a lot of pressure when you start out as an individual private guitar maker to grow. And growing means putting out more product, getting dealerships, gaining employees, and starting to standardize your product line and put more product on the market; where I’ve been almost anti to that. I’ve really kind of bucked every kind of chance that I’ve had to do that, just because I enjoy working with every individual person to design a guitar around them.

I think that intimate relationship is something that gets lost, you know, as soon as you start going with a standardized product, that you can have more than one person produce. You start to lose that intimacy that you get, that collaboration. And that’s what keeps me growing as a guitar maker too. It keeps me evolving and it keeps my mind open to new ideas, because everybody has their own take on the instrument that they want. It keeps my knowledge level growing and it keeps me evolving as a builder.

But at the same time, I’m really happy and comfortable where I’m at, staying where I’m at. I don’t mind if the demand, so to speak, outstrips the ability to make the guitars. I really like having that control over being able to build every guitar myself and have that one-on-one relationship with every person.

Rick: A very organic approach.

Matt: Yeah, I definitely consider myself more of an artisan than a business person. The business is sort of a byproduct of what I do.

Rick: Does it get in the way?

Matt: Well, you know, it’s a necessary evil. The business end itself takes just as much time out of the day than the guitars do and it’s important. I think the other major thing that has really evolved or allowed a person like me to have somewhat of a successful business is the Internet. With the evolution of the Internet over the past ten years it is just amazing how, not necessarily even word of mouth of the people that are current clients, but just word of mouth in general spreads.

Rick: Yeah, it’s pretty wild.

Matt: It’s unbelievable! I mean it’s a scary thing when you think about it. It’s an entity unto itself, but at the same time it’s really helped a company like mine grow to a level that I’m comfortable with.

Rick: So, you’re really trying to not only manage your growth. But, manage how your day to day existence is, it sounds like, in trying to balance everything so you’re not stretched too far and you don’t lose the intimacy with your clients and your guitars don’t get watered down.

Matt: I’m not an administrator by nature. I’m a craftsman and I truly have a passion for what I do and I really would never feel comfortable being in that position. I shouldn’t say, "Never say never," but at this point in my life, I’m comfortable where I’m at and I’m just not prepared to go into that level of things where I’m more of a an administrator. I don’t see how I could successfully translate that over and have the same guitar and the same quality, that same intimacy that I know. I mean, when you carve an individual piece of wood and your spending hours and hours over top of it, you really get to know that piece of wood and that guitar inside and out. I don’t want to lose that connection.

Rick: This guitar looks like it’s got an arch like an archtop guitar would have; do you have any guitars where you’ve got maybe a German carve that you’ve done?

Matt: You mean more like a…

Rick: Like an old Mosrite.

Matt: No, generally most of mine are typical violin style archtops. Once again it’s a general translation down from the larger body of archtops that I started making. I haven’t done any of the more retro-y type of shell carves and things like that. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to, it’s just that, you know, once you have something that you’re comfortable with and you start to know, it’s hard for me to just make an immediate jump into several different directions and still feel like I have control over what the guitar is doing, and all the variables associated with it.

Rick: So to use a pun, you find something that resonates?

Matt: Basically yeah, it’s multi-faceted, you know, when saying that, you find something that works and you only gradually evolve that and a lot of times it just happens naturally. It happens without you even realizing. Like I was saying before, with individual client needs and basically weighing every individual’s likes and dislikes and needs and aesthetic wants.

Things kind of evolve on their own without even trying to necessarily evolve your instruments. It's one of those things like watching your children grow up. If there’s somebody that hasn’t seen your child in five years and they used to be a toddler and all of a sudden it’s a teenager it’s a shock to them. But, to you, since you’re dealing with it on a daily basis, you’re seeing your kid on a daily basis, you don’t really notice that growth as drastically. So, it’s more or less the same thing. I think from the outside, people see a lot more drastic evolution of my instruments than I see.

Rick: Do you have any of your earlier guitars here?

Matt: I don’t. As far as I know of, I don’t. I think one of my oldest ones is still at home with my folks. I had given it to them. But, I know probably a lot of the other guitar makers have collections of their own.

But, I’m the type of person that once I let out a creative expression, if do a guitar let’s say a show guitar or something that I’m building for a particular purpose that I want to let loose on, that’s my creative outlet. That will be my most important focus at the moment and then once that guitar is done, I’m ready to move on to the next thing. I’m ready to keep rotating through guitars. I don’t really accumulate them or keep them. I’m just ready to move on to the next project.

Rick: You’re not a collector?

Matt: No, not by nature. Only because I had so many ideas to let out of my brain that I’m not really concerned about holding onto previous ideas. I’m just ready to continue to express myself in different ways and let it loose on the public.

Rick: It’s as if each guitar sort of pollinates the market for you. As it goes out there people like their guitar and then somehow grapevine themselves back to you.

Matt: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, unfortunately it’s more of a rarity that I have the time to do spec instruments like that, but I still try to make as much time as possible to do at least two or three of those a year.

Rick: I was talking to Grit Laskin awhile back and he told me that he has six guitars going at any given time. Two that are being finished, two that he’s just starting to work with, two that are actually in the main part of the build process and then he moves back and forth because he gets bored and moves to something else because certain parts of making a guitar, like sanding or whatever, can get kind of, you know, mundane. So ,do you do the same thing or do you build a single guitar at a time or what’s your process?

Matt: No, actually at this point I have about twelve guitars that are in various states of process. I do work with Dave Mansel as my finisher. So, it’s a constant balance of guitars being started, guitars in mid-production, guitars that are with Dave, and guitars that are being final set-ups. At any given time I may have between four and five guitars in the production stage or in the beginning stages. I may have four or five at Dave’s shop and I may have one or two here that are getting final set up and getting ready to move on to clients.

I think a lot of the impetus for me doing as many guitars as I do is not necessarily for the boredom factor. I kind of trudge through the evil stuff that I don’t like doing, like the sanding and the this, that, and the other thing out of habit. But, I’m more concerned about time frames. I know a lot of makers have accumulated really large waiting lists.

Rick: Sometimes a decade or more.

Matt: And that makes me nervous. I really appreciate when somebody wants to come to me for a guitar and I don’t necessarily want to hold onto somebody’s deposit for two years before I get to pick wood out for it. So, I keep that constant flow going. And, although there’s more guitars than you may expect for a single builder to have in the process at all times, it kind of keeps a person involved in the process. Almost as soon as they lay a deposit down, there are certain elements that are falling into place for them already, whether it’s wood selection or discussing what type of taste they have, the types of instruments they have now.

Whether it’s just the interaction or it’s actually in the building process itself I try to keep everybody in the loop at all times. Even if their guitar isn’t going to be started for several months, I try to still keep them in the creative loop and keep the ideas flowing with them until we get to it so that nobody feels anxious or impatient to get started. I try to keep everybody satisfied. Even if it’s at my own personal loss, I’m still on the mode where I’m working between six and seven days a week and most likely twelve hours or more a day, on a weekday.

Rick: Do you find that for you personally, that if you had fewer guitars to build that you wouldn’t have the discipline to get them finished as fast, or the more work you have the busier you are.

Matt: Well, I’m a person that feeds off being busy. I think I would be a lot less happy having little to do than having too much to do. I kind of feed off of the craziness of having too much to do. Whether that’s healthy or not, it’s my nature. I thrive off of it. I think I actually do better when I have too much work on my plate than not enough.

Rick: Do you ever test other guitars that are on the market just to see what’s out there?

Matt:Yeah, well I’ve been a repairman. I started repairing when I started my business and I just recently started paring back on the repair end of the business, due to the Martin inlay work and actually working with them on the models that we’re producing now.

Rick: What’s the name of OMC model?

Matt: It’s called the OMC Artinger One.

Rick: Oh okay, it’s a good idea. It’s your own signature Martin guitar.

Matt: Yeah, it’s a special edition signature model that I think the only other one in their history, in their current history is the Dale Unger archtop. So, I think it’s a really neat collaboration, not to get off on a sidetrack, it’s a been a really fun experience actually for me to be able to experience the larger end of the guitar business and learn a lot of things about that. I think for them it's having fresh ideas come in from somebody who’s outside of the loop that might suggest things that they may have not thought of in-house. It’s a neat synergy and collaboration.

I almost find it akin to Microsoft being the, you know, Martin as the leader of the industry and Microsoft as the leader in their industry and a lot times when they go for innovation it’s not in-house innovation that they end up finding. It’s small think tanks and people that are basically monks at what they do and are totally passionate in what they do. That’s where a lot of those ideas come from and I think Martin is taking the same philosophy, where there’s a lot of really interesting ideas coming out of small builders that are keeping tradition in mind. But, taking it a little bit to the next level that a production company doesn’t have as much freedom to do.

Rick: I think the entrepreneurial spirit tends to be more focused in single builders and that type of thing, so it sounds like to me that they are actually benchmarking with you and at the same time you can learn from them and enjoy the collaboration with one of the top companies.

Matt: Absolutely. I mean, it’s a really beneficial relationship for us all and for me especially just being able to see and learn how. If I ever were to take the next level in to a production type setting, that just seeing how the benchmark company actually runs their production and how tightly coordinated and organized everything is when you go there it’s really mind blowing for a guy like me.

I always use this comparison: I compare Martin as more or less a giant battleship. On board everybody has their orders, everything operates exactly how it’s to be operated, where I’m just kind of this little jet ski. I can turn on a dime. I enjoy being able to turn on a dime and turn completely around backwards if I do something that I don’t like. But, for them it’s more of a revolutionary process for them to come up with new ideas and new designs. So, it’s neat being able to have the opportunity to be able to inject some of my own thoughts into the process.

Rick: When you’re building, when you first pick your selection for woods do you do that yourself? Do you have a place that you go to?

Matt: I do. A lot of my guitars are centered around mahogany, which is becoming harder and harder to get unfortunately. But, I do have a supplier that’s about an hour and a half away that I go to, maybe once every three or four months, and stock up with.

Rick: Do you go hand select?

Matt: Yeah. He knows me well enough that when I come with my cup of coffee and my tape measure in the morning that I’m pretty much going to pick through every single board. He enjoys it too. Most of the guys that come there are furniture makers, this, that, and everything. They’re pulling large stocks of the wood just to use for various projects. I think the mill owner really enjoys talking to me about the intricacies that I see, that other guys may not see. So, it’s fun.

Rick: Have you studied what effects wood over the life cycle of an ownership of a guitar?

Matt: Well, with carved top instruments, I think that seasoning is one thing. But, as far as it losing characteristics, I think that that is more a possible byproduct of laptop acoustic instruments. I think, in general, and this is obvious philosophy, that the more an instrument is played and as things start to loosen up and sympathetically resonate with the person that’s playing it the more the instrument’s going to actually blossom and gain its voice.

You know it’s always those instruments that you see that are put in closets and not played that may look beautiful in another thirty years, but they’re probably going to be some of the clunkiest sounding instruments that you may play.

Rick: So, it’s always in the process of becoming itself, just like the artist I guess.

Matt: It’s like planting a seed and not watering it. It needs that cultivation of the player to really bring the voice out of an instrument. I definitely have noticed over the years instruments that I’ve built that have been played hard over several years and I get them back and they sound like a completely different guitar. It’s a pretty amazing thing to see. I’m normally just getting to see the guitar when it’s bright, tight and new and it’s neat to see some of these instruments, when they’ve really opened up and gained their own individual voices. You have some control over that variable, but really the player has the ultimate control over that variable. And the way it ages is really up to the person that’s playing it, the person that’s using it.

Rick: Do you typically make acoustics?

Matt: I do.

Rick: Do you have any here?

Matt: Very rarely. I have a Brazilian Rose with baritone that I’m working on right now. I may only build one or two a year and a lot of that is for my personal fun. I think with focusing on the OMC Artinger model over the next few years I’m probably not going to be building acoustics. I’m going to be drawing a lot of my attention and focus into maintaining those guitars.

Rick: Do you have any here?

Matt: I have my personal prototypes.

Rick: Let’s see the prototype.

Matt: For the NAMM shows I build one-offs. Every NAMM show I build a one-off for them to take to NAMM and offer up to the dealers.

Rick: So with Martin, did you collaborate with Dick Boak personally or were other people involved?

Matt: No, actually the first person that I’d met and started talking to was the research and design director and he was the first person to approach me with some ideas.

Rick: How did he approach you?

Matt: We met for the first time at a guitar convention, I think the Philadelphia guitar show in probably 2003 or 2004. I had met him several times before that just going up to the factory. I started as a Martin warranty repairman when I was 20, so I had several years of experience and growth and knowledge of different people in the company. I would go up there on a somewhat frequent basis, so I was familiar with everybody up there. I think in some ways it's a kind of a natural progression for us to work together, because we’ve had a long term relationship with each other.

One of the funniest stories, I think, is my parents have a good friend who is close to Chris Martin. When I was I think about 14 my parents had asked to approach Chris with me and to sit down when I had the first ideas that I wanted to be a guitar maker. I think a lot of their hopes were that Chris was going to sit me down and tell me that it was a bad idea that “your chance for success is low, if you do it as a hobby,” this, that, and the other thing. I think Chris was pretty much exactly the opposite, and next thing you know, ten years later we’re working on the same projects together.

Rick: Have they visited your shop?

Matt: Yeah, the Martin people have been here several times. Chris himself hasn’t been here yet, but I’ve had several large groupings of people here to get together on certain ideas.

Rick: I’ve heard that they take some of their employees around on tours of shops and get ideas.

Matt: Oh yeah, and that’s another neat thing, regardless of the competitive nature of the industry. A lot of the bigger companies have surprisingly closer relationships than you would think they do, as far as employees from a lot of the bigger companies coming to visit each other and seeing the inner workings of each others companies. That was a surprise to me. Initially when I learned about that and saw the different schedules and the different trips that some of the people up there were taking, that was surprisingly positive for a fairly deeply competitive industry.

Rick: Aren't there quite a few top builders in the local area?

Matt: There are.

Rick: Do you collaborate with them or do you know them or hang out?

Matt: Yeah, well I think most of us Pennsylvania builders are pretty tight knit and we all know each other from seeing each other at conventions and we call each other and we do work with each other. As far as my relationships, I get some of my tailpiece parts off Bill Comins in Philadelphia, Victor Baker is a rough machine guy, and I actually use time on his CNC machine for different projects. Dale Unger and I have known each other for a long time. Bob Benadetto moved out of the area I think right about the time when I was getting into the industry. So, I didn’t get to know him as well, but I do know him now.

Rick: He’s moved back hasn’t he?

Matt: That I’m not sure. I think the last time I heard he was in California and he was with Fender and after that. I know he was in Florida for a while also.

But, besides that there are a lot of other hobbyist guitar makers in this area. I think a lot of this is a direct association with just having one of the east coast, or the east coast Mecca being so close, which is Martin. I think a lot of people have taken the initiative, or the interest in guitar making through seeing Martins.

Rick: The aura going around the area.

Matt: Absolutely. You know there’s a lot of energy. You know, we’re all smelling the same lacquer fumes!

Rick: What’s your turnaround time from when an order is placed, until the buyer gets their instrument?

Matt: Right now, I’m still trying to keep it within the range of six months, from start to finish. That’s the reason why I have probably more guitars in the process than most guys that are individual builders at any one time. I like to keep that time frame flowing.

Rick: You've got a nice shop here, well organized and uncluttered.

Matt: As you notice probably, more of my equipment is fairly standard issue as compared to when you go into slightly larger shops. I still do most of my work with hand tools, as far as if I’m carving a top I’m using palm plane scrapers, a lot of chisel work. I find just by nature I can do things quicker by hand than setting up a computer machine to do things. I was just on the cusp of that whole computer generation and I missed the boat on that. You know, I’m more comfortable with a tool in my hand than I am with any laptop in my hand programming something.

Rick: You’re right at the end of a generation before the digital age.

Matt: Exactly. And the only thing that saddens me, and I won’t point the finger at anybody and I ‘d never do that, but what saddens me now is that the way things have evolved. Some makers now have gotten into the industry that are more engineering based by nature, and not craftsman and wouldn’t even know how to sharpen a chisel or use a chisel. But, they know how to operate a CNC machine and, once again, for me that really loses a lot of the artistic girth of instrument building.

You know, you don’t learn as much off of your instruments when you’re worried about something fitting together by a couple thousandths of an inch off a machine. You’re really not learning the intimacy of your guitars that way. So, I’m more comfortable. I’ve gotten, after several hundred guitars now, comfortable being able to do these things fairly rapidly and accurately. I don’t really feel the need that I need to get in there and computerize or specialize the equipment. I’m happy with what I have and I know every tool that I have inside and out. Some are more fickle than others. But, I know them all pretty well.

Rick: As your building, as your sanding, doing some of those mundane things or even more of the intricate things like the inlay, do you have a lot of Zen moments when things just sort of flow ?

Matt: I don’t want to sound hippie and at all, but there are certain days, and a lot of my customers are going to cringe if they read this, but when the phone is my enemy. The phone sometimes is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me, because if it wasn’t for that and wasn’t necessary for the business end of things creeping in here and there, there could be twelve hours that could pass where I won’t even notice if it’s light or dark out.

Rick: So you must love E-mail.

Matt: I love E-mail. E-mail is absolutely my friend. Say that in capital letters! No, but honestly I get pretty deeply focused when I’m working and I think a lot of it is just working by myself for so many years. I’m happier working by myself than I am with other people. I’m used to it.

Rick: If some young person came to you like your parents had you meet Chris Martin today, a young male or young female, and they wanted to do this what would you say?

Matt:That’s a tough one. Because if you would have asked me that when I was 19 I would have had a different answer than I have today. I think with how many years that I do have under my belt, I feel that I was really fortunate to have started business when I was a little bit too ballsy and naïve to know what it really was all about. I think I took a lot of my hard knocks early and got comfortable, while I was still young enough to be able to rapidly change.

Building guitars is one thing, I would encourage anybody to build guitars and to learn the craft and to keep the craft going. Starting a business out of it is a whole different story. I mean it’s a very difficult thing to do and I almost equivocate it to going to acting school and then thinking that you’re going to Hollywood. I really feel fortunate to have built this business, not because it’s that I worked hard, there is a lot of hard work involved, but once again, I think a lot of it is just the way the cards fall for certain people. You definitely consider yourself lucky if you make your stake in such an international marketplace. It’s a really fortunate thing.

So, I guess I would basically approach it with anybody asking that with a little bit more reality and candor than I probably would have several years ago. It’s a great thing to do, but hopefully you have something else to feed yourself on and pay your bills on. When people were telling me that when I was young, you know, telling me it’s going to take ten years or more to establish yourself I was a young brazen kid saying “Ah, please” and now ten years later –it’s taken that long.

Rick: But you’ve got the rhythm now.

Matt: Yeah and I think I’ve been lucky. I’ve been diligent in that way too. I’ve always had a really strong work ethic, but once again, it’s really just the nature of the beast that you're not going to necessarily dictate your direction. It’s just a lot of the direction is going to dictate to you where you go.

Rick: I don’t think we finished what Chris Martin said to you.

Matt: Well, much to my parents chagrin, he encouraged me to follow my dreams and I did. I took it to heart and I followed my dreams. I think just by looking at it in those broad terms, you could tell that to a hundred people and a lot of it’s just good fortune, you know? I followed my dreams, I worked really hard to get where I’ve gotten, but it’s still a crapshoot. It’s not an easy business to make your claim in when you’re just starting out.

Rick But, the dream stuck and you still have the same dream.

Matt: I’m stubborn. I’m stubbornly determined. I think stubborn determination is another large quality of guitar makers. I think we’re all stubbornly determined or else 90 percent of us wouldn’t be here in this business. We’re not necessarily becoming millionaires or gaining easier lives over time, where with some businesses you kind of get to a gradual point and then life gets a little bit easier. You gain a little bit more freedom. Most guitar makers, we work until the day we die.There is no retirement for us; a lot of us just do what we do for our entire lives and our entire careers. We have that passion, so a lot of it is just stubborn determination and passion for what we do, not necessarily a savvy business sense, so to speak.

Rick: Do you have any environmental considerations when you’re building these guitars, with the woods you choose? I know there are certain restrictions on certain woods.

Matt: Mainly, yeah, there are. I’m such a small builder that I’m not getting into too much of that. But, as far as certain woods that are rarer, I’m only using them for detail work and things like that. Things with Brazilian Rosewood and Koa and things like that. I’m not using them in bulk like some other companies are using. As blatant as it is to say, most of that environmental impact comes from the prices going up and things. It's not necessarily hard to direct towards consciousness, a lot of times we get priced out of purchasing a lot of those things, as small builders.

But, if you look over in the corner there’s really not a single useful scrap that I throw away and I’m digging in that corner multiple times a day to find just the right piece of wood. So, I’m by no means producing a lot of waste or as much waste as I think bigger companies are producing. I’m really trying to maximize every small piece of wood that I can possibly use. There’s a purpose for everything.

Rick: A time for every season.

Matt: Absolutely.

Rick: What’s the next guitar you want to build? Do you have any concept that you would like to try that you haven’t tried?

Matt: Well, I am going to start experimenting in a few different body shapes and I have just produced a new guitar this year called the Hollow Body Sport, which is a variation of my hollow body guitar. The body is slightly thinner, the arches are shallower, it’s more in the vein of trying to mimic the 335 type sound and type of feel than it is the fuller body trying to take a 17 inch archtop and compact it into a 15 inch guitar. That, [Points to guitar in room] I just worked on over the past several months, and I always have more ideas in my brain than time to execute them normally. So, it’s a tough question only in the way that they keep growing everyday and certain ideas fall by the wayside and certain ideas stick in my mind. But, I’m never at a shortage for ideas.

Rick: Let's return a bit to collaboration. Is there a spirit of collaboration among builders or do you find it to be pretty competitive?

Matt: It's mostly all of us talking to each other. There's two types of ilk as far as guitar makers go. There's the ones that are ruthlessly competitive and the other ones are like us who, basically we're all a family and we all know that. Whoever is interested in my instruments is not going to be interested in somebody elses instruments and moreover, there's more than enough clients out there that we're really not in competition. We're more in tandem, in harmony with each other, than in competition.

Rick: Yeah, you talk about Fender and Gibson, they're looking for high numbers. You're looking for numbers that are agreeable with how you want to live your life, I think.

Matt: They also look at their books every year and if they have a flat year, that's considered a down year. If they don't have at least some modicum of growth every year, that's a down year. So, they're always looking for growth no matter what. It's interesting to see the bigger companies and how they react that way. If we sustain, we're happy. But, those guys need to see growth in order to think that they're not falling backwards.

Rick: Yeah, so they're trying to make inroads in China and everywhere else to have that market expand.

Matt: And I'm still amazed that these big companies can sell as many instruments a year as they do.

Rick: It's crazy because there are so many guitars being sold on eBay, which is another competitor.

Matt: Right.

Rick: And I've gotten some really good guitars on eBay at really good prices. So, I don't know how those companies can sustain.

Matt: It's getting to that point where you're not only competing with everybody else, but you're competing with your own used market. That's crazy.

Rick: Let's get back a bit to what you've been up to lately.

Matt: Well, I've been pretty much keeping the same business model and build between 35 and 40 instruments a year, which is pretty much my peak output as a one-man shop. But, still keeping the same philosophy, that I like to work more intimately with each person rather than building spec instruments.

Still, every single instrument that I build is different than the last. The greatest part about that is you get interaction with every single person who has different ideas to bring to the table. It keeps the creative process fun and it keeps every single instrument unique.

Rick: So, you're not bored?

Matt: I'm not bored at all. [Both laughing] And you know what? The part of my blessing and my curse is that there's always at least 15 ideas floating around in my head at any point in time. So, I'm never at a loss for getting something done. That's kind of what led to that latest guitar that you saw. I've always been a huge fan of doing theme-related guitars for people. Just recently I did a guitar for a gentleman who has a greyhound rescue and we did a greyhound-themed guitar with silver and copper greyhounds running down the fingerboard. That was really fun.

People bring ideas like that to the table, along with building instruments for professional musicians, people like that who really keep the process fun.

Rick: That's interesting you mention the greyhound. There's an illustrator named Paul Olson. Paul did the Robin Trower's album covers back in the '70s, Bridge of Sighs and a few others. I suggested to him that, because people love their dogs so much and you mentioned greyhounds, that he should paint guitars that are based on different dog hair themes.

Matt: Oh, yeah! Just like doing the '80s tiger stripes and things like that. You do like a cat or a calico or a tiger...

Rick: Or Dalmatian or whatever.

Matt: Right! [Laughing]

Rick: He thought about it for a moment and then he says, "Ah, you're crazy." [Both laughing] You know, people love their dogs.

Matt: Those are the types of ideas that, I hear them, those are the types of things that end up sticking in my head, that don't go away until you try it. [Laughing]

Rick: And they might be a platform for other ideas that actually are more agreeable to how you might present yourself.

Matt: Right, and once again, as a one-man builder who really takes the artisan side of things a lot more seriously than the process side of things. There's two separate types of us: I'm pretty much happy doing a different thing every time and it's a lot of the reason that when you visit my shop there aren't a lot of really super-dedicated jigs and super-dedicated tooling. That's because I'm basically starting from scratch every single time, making a concept from start to finish.

Rick: Yeah, that's pretty unusual, I would think.

Matt: Yeah. And especially for such a relatively high output of instruments per year, it definitely is. But, I'm still single [Both laughing] and spending about 16 hours a day in my shop.

Rick: That might be why you're single. [Both laughing]

Matt: I'm happy.

Rick: Well, that's good.

Matt: Happy to spend so much time a day by yourself, it kind of becomes a little bit more cathartic. I'm kind of a loner and a maverick in that way. You almost feel uncomfortable around larger groups of people.

Rick: That's funny. [Both laughing]

Matt: Welcome to the wacky artist in most of us.

Rick: What's with the Chopper guitar? How did that come about?

Matt: Well, when I started working with Martin in 2004 on my OMC Signature model, they started working with Nub at the same time.

Rick: I've seen some of his work. When I was at NAMM in Nashville, Martin had some guitars with his artwork.

Matt: Yeah. They started working with him at the same time and I kind of became fast friends with him and visited his shop a few times and saw him at different Martin events and actually went out to NAMM with him last year.

He's another guy just like me. He's always got ideas in his head. He just loves carrying out things he hasn't done before. He's also a musician. So, doing a guitar is pretty much second nature for him. I had done a Chopper guitar several years ago, and in my opinion, not that I made a mistake of selling it, but I felt a little bit depressed that I did sell it, because I intended it for myself. So, I asked Nub if he would be interested in doing a second version for me and he was more than gracious and we went ahead and did it.

Rick: I figured you had some Orange County, California, biker client involved, right?

Matt: No, actually just a collaboration between me and him, just through the friendship that we developed. I think it's basically the start of doing a few more projects together, moving forward.

Rick: That's you're personal guitar?

Matt: Exactly. For the moment. [Both laughing] I feel I'd regret selling that one, too. That's the other thing. I think a guitar maker, you're more like a car dealer. You're always driving new cars all the time, but you never own any of them. That's just the way it has to be in order to pay the bills. I still don't officially own any of my own guitars.

Rick: Working with Nub, how did that collaboration work? You built the guitar and he basically did the finish, or what?

Matt: I built the guitar. He did the finish and actually worked alongside my regular painter, Dave Mansell, who did the undercoats and the topcoats. So, Nub basically just did the graphic flames and the pinstriping around the flames, and then sent it back to my other finisher.

Rick: Was that based on the old pinstriping of the classic custom cars?

Matt: Exactly, with more of a '50s type flame.

Rick: Ah, okay. Were you like a custom car freak kid when you were a kid?

Matt: Absolutely. I still am! Just last year I did a pretty interesting guitar for a client that I had gone to a car show and saw, I think it was a '68 Barracuda, that was painted in Plum Crazy. I absolutely fell in love with the color Plum Crazy. So, we just did a guitar last year that had that color on it. It was gorgeous. I'm getting more and more into using transparent colors over flame and transparent colors over mahogany and things like that. I'm getting more and more interested in doing automotive coloring.

Rick: When you say transparent, you mean you can still kind of see the wood grain?

Matt: Exactly. The typical bursts and things that you see.

Rick: What else do you think you and Nub will be working on? Have you talked about it?

Matt: I've always had the concept in my head to do a WWII style bomber guitar, where basically the whole guitar is painted in riveted panels and some rust and maybe a few bullet holes and possibly a pin-up girl behind the bridge.

Rick: Oh, that would be interesting.

Matt: Yeah. I've always thought that would be a really neat thing, more or less to design the sound hole pretty much like an inlet valve or an intake for the engine. Just another artistic expression, conceptual-type guitar.

Rick: Would the whammy bar be like the gunner's gun or something?

Matt: Well, you're giving me more ideas. [Both laughing]

Rick: If I see it, I'll claim it.

Matt: Actually, along that same lineup, I just did another pretty intense graphic design guitar a few months ago for a client in Maryland, who is one of the country's foremost G.I. Joe collectors. I did a double-neck G.I. Joe guitar, one side of the guitar being dedicated to G.I. Joe, the other side of the guitar being dedicated to Cobra, which is the enemy of G.I. Joe. It was fun getting back into my childhood days and researching G.I. Joe again. But, that one in particular, it was my first time taking 50 caliber bullets and making knobs out of 50 caliber bullets.If you go to my website, you can check it out on my gallery pages.

Rick: Are you collaborating with Martin Guitar on anything else?

Matt: Yeah, we've been working on different projects ever since, whether it was certain details of one off guitars. For every NAMM show, I build a one off guitar for them. I can't necessarily divulge the details for this January's NAMM one off, but there is gonna be one there that's more spectacular. I think I'm up to five right now, and this is the most spectacular one by far. It's a totally new guitar for them.

Rick: Anything else?

Matt: There are some other projects that are coming up in the future, but I kind of have to keep a little bit tight-lipped. If it was up to me, I would sing like a bird!

Rick: Yeah, well, you know, Martin and other larger builders, they're pretty tight-lipped until they let their dealers know what they have first.

Matt: Exactly. In dealing with them I'm lucky enough that in dealing with them for so many years that I'm finally up to speed on how to operate in those ways, you know? [Laughing]

Once again, I'm still fortunate enough to be enjoying a fair amount of business right now and keeping things pretty tightly wound around just me, being the primary person in the shop and just dealing one at a time with people to design guitars around them. I think that's the biggest satisfaction for me, that's building a guitar for somebody that has their personality built into it from day one.

Related Links
Artinger Guitars
Martin Guitar Introduces the Special Edition Artinger OMC1
Nub Graphix
Michael G. Stewart Photography

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