We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Equitz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Kevin, thanks for joining us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?
A creative team I worked with for several years collectively came up with the phrase “simplify by simplifying” when things would start spiraling into compounding frustration, and it’s something I like to remind myself with every project. There’s usually a time to add an embellishment or extra something that isn’t entirely necessary, but it’s ultimately important to do so with the awareness of the overall functional/visual balance and the purpose it represents. .
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Growing up in a very musical family, there were always plenty of instruments within reach. As a kid in the 80s, electric guitars were mysterious and magical, and I was quickly fascinated. Going to school for illustration and design, it struck me one day that I should try my hand at designing and building my own someday. After years of saving money, buying parts, and doing research, I finally assembled my first project guitar and was instantly hooked. Very generous family members and friends let me build parts guitars for them, and I gradually found my way to building the different pieces myself. In time, I was able to develop a lineup of custom designs, and expand my network to various kinds of players.
My guitars are handmade in small batches, and I’ve worked at balancing custom orders with on-spec concepts in the last couple years. It’s important to me to work directly with each player in order to find out what music they play and listen to, and also what guitars they may already have. In the end, I want them to have a completely unique instrument that they got to conceptualize with me and follow along with the process as it takes shape. There are many other makers like me, so I’m also happy to make suggestions and share the appreciation of handmade guitars with my fellow builders.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
My wife and I met in our college years, and we both share a passion for art and music in our home. Though she’s not a builder herself, she has put up with so much as I’ve learned the process, and she’s such a helpful counterpart as we build a community of friends in this space. For us, the guitar is just the context; we’ve found so much joy in getting to know musicians personally, and staying in contact beyond the project itself. We agreed long ago that this would always be about more than guitars.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Many well-meaning friends and acquaintances had suggested over the years that I should focus on celebrity endorsements and potentially outsource elements of the process, and for a while I entertained that idea, thinking that’s how to get the most out of this type of work. In some cases, I had been apologizing to my players for the time it took me to build and for how few I made each year. However, it was pointed out to me that factory-made guitars are already easy to come by, and though I’d appreciate more celebrities playing my guitars, it’s more important to me that all of my effort goes to something that the right player will cherish indefinitely, whether they play in arenas or just their living rooms. Taking the time to build these the long way is so important to me, and I’m so thankful for the ones who understand and appreciate the process.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://equitzguitars.com
- Instagram: @equitzguitars
- Facebook: @equitzguitars
- Youtube: https://YouTube.com/equitzguitars
