We recently connected with Vander Warner and have shared our conversation below.

Vander, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had started sooner?

I definitely wish I would have started sooner, hindsight is always a clearer picture but there were 100 different things I could’ve done to have jump started the career path I’m on now.

I wanted to be a professional guitar player when I was 10-11 years old, I hadn’t been playing guitar very long but I figured there had to be people somewhere making music for a living and that began a very deep rabbit hole I’m still going down today. It took me a very long time to figure out how the music industry worked for somebody that wanted to be a sideman, and I don’t really think that part would have changed.

Starting my career sooner than I did would have changed a lot of things about my life honestly. At one point I almost went to Montreat College in Asheville NC to pursue a music business major, which probably would have pushed things along because the last semester was an internship in Nashville, which would have been great but I wouldn’t have met my wife so thats a huge thing to consider, even though its not career related at all.

In the long run I think I’m better off taking the path I did because in the years since I was floundering in my early 20s I was able to get things together enough that by the time I had grown up and was ready to take myself as a musician seriously I had worked up the courage to move to nashville and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m a guitar player and guitar repair tech, I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia and have been playing guitar since I was 10 years old. I came up playing guitar in church and various projects with friends I went to church/school with through high school and started making a decent supplementary income with my playing about five years ago, which escalated into moving to nashville to pursue it full time.

I started fixing guitars in 2019, I went to school for it and spent most of 2020 (covid) refining my craft so when the world reopened I started taking repair clients in Raleigh NC before moving. Since moving to Nashville I’ve built a small client base and am perpetually available for repairs but since playing is my focus I have to be mindful for what I commit to.

Whether I’m hired for a gig or hired to repair a guitar I take what I do very seriously to execute whatever job it is to the highest level. For gigs I always put together a playlist for whatever songs the artist wants me to play so I can burn the songs into my head while I do things around the house or when I take the dog for a walk, ask lots of questions so there are no surprises when I show up to bus call or rehearsal and take time to practice the songs whether I have two weeks or two days to prepare.

When fixing guitars its important to be efficient, I do my best to stay on top of my workload to keep my wait time as short as possible and if a guitar isn’t set up to the customers liking I warranty my work so it’ll be right every time a guitar gets picked up.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

The best resource when it comes to being a freelance musician are other people that have done it. Early in my life as a musician I remember getting very frustrated when the few people I did ask about this they always said to meet people and make connections, it took about 1000 times and ten years of spinning my wheels to finally stop and think “maybe connections and meeting people is the way to go” and as soon as I starting doing that my career went from dead with no prospects to making my living off my guitar playing.

My five years in Raleigh was a big learning experience for me, I met a few people that greatly encouraged me and gave me advice based on their own experiences as hired guns (shoutout to Aaron and Steve), and then ultimately encouraged me to make the move to nashville so I owe them a lot

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Talking to my family and in-laws about what I do is always an entertaining and frustrating proposition. Music is absolutely one of those careers where its hard to understand it from the outside. I think the biggest disconnect is the concept of music as a people business rather than about the music. 99% of other jobs somebody could take in their life is gotten because of being qualified and persistent with whoever is doing the hiring at said job, and once you get the job you don’t have any say in who you work with. Because music is so people oriented, its very hard to make music (originals, covers, whatever) with people you don’t get along with, and on the other side of that if you’re playing songs you don’t like with people you do like, it becomes an absolute blast. A service, retail or a myriad of office jobs don’t require a personal connection to accomplish whatever the collective goal is, in my landscaping career I didn’t have to talk to any of my coworkers and the work still got done. The personal connection is very important when you’re in close quarters on the road, and the show is way better for the players and the audience even on a cover set or Broadway gig if the band is vibing. Explaining that to somebody that isn’t musical is like talking in circles.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: vanderwarnerguitar
• Facebook: Warner Guitar Works