The Steve Stine Podcast

Strings, Stages, and Smiling: My Guitar Journey

• Steve Stine

Share episode

Send Steve a Text Message

What does it really take to build a sustainable career in music while maintaining your sanity and relationships? In this revealing episode, Steve Stine pulls back the curtain on his musical journey and sets the record straight about a common misconception.

"I do not own Guitar Zoom. I have never owned Guitar Zoom," Steve clarifies early in our conversation. Working for Dan Denley's company for 15 years as a content creator has been just one chapter in Steve's multifaceted career. From his first transformative encounter with Kiss's "Love Gun" album as a child to teaching over 100 private students weekly in his twenties, Steve's path has been defined by both passion and overwhelming commitment.

The heart of this episode explores the breaking point that changed everything. While juggling teaching positions at a Montessori school, a rock academy, and a college—plus playing in touring bands—Steve found himself burning out. His wife was "running ragged" managing their daughter's activities while he was perpetually absent. When Guitar Zoom offered him a chance to consolidate his career, Steve made the difficult choice to step away from his numerous commitments. "It was the first time I think I've ever just sat in silence and had a moment of peace," he reflects on that transition.

Now at 55, with a grandchild and decades of experience behind him, Steve has found a delicate balance between his love for playing, teaching, and his commitment to faith and family. His story offers valuable perspective for musicians at any stage who struggle with the tension between creative fulfillment and personal wellbeing. Whether you're starting your musical journey or reconsidering your own work-life balance, Steve's candid reflections provide both inspiration and practical wisdom.

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

Steve:

Hey, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Steve Stine Guitar Podcast Today. What I thought we would talk about is I get a lot of questions about me, my history, and one of the most important questions I tend to get is Guitar Zoom. Who owns Guitar Zoom? People think I own Guitar Zoom. I do not own Guitar Zoom. I have never owned Guitar Zoom.

Steve:

There's a gentleman, wonderful gentleman, by the name of Dan Denley who has always owned Guitar Zoom and he hired me about 15 years ago to make content for him, make courses, make some videos, things like that, and I've been working with Dan ever since then. Now, of course, I do, you know, some guitar lessons on the side and I play in lots of bands, and you know some guitar lessons on the side and I play in lots of bands and, uh, you know, I still do clinics and teach classes at various um, you know, educational institutions, things like that. So I do a lot of things, uh, on the side as well, but I most certainly have been working for Guitar Zoom, uh, this entire time for the last 15 years. So, no, I do not own Guitar Zoom. I have never owned Guitar Zoom. I always never owned Guitar Zoom. I always tell people my job, pretty much everywhere I go, is to smile and strum and to motivate people. So, whether I'm, you know, motivating people within Guitar Zoom, the Guitar Zoom Academy, you know, teaching people how to play, whether I'm doing it at a college, whether I'm, you know, performing whatever it's trying to get people excited about music, excited about guitar playing, motivated that sort of thing. That's what I've always done.

Steve:

And so, to answer a few other questions, like well, how did I get to where I am doing what I'm doing right now? What other kinds of things have I done in my life? And I don't talk a lot about myself, but I thought I would take this opportunity and just tell you a little bit about where I've been and what I've done and, you know, give you a little bit of information. So, basically, back when I was about seven or eight years old, I went to one of my cousin's house and I had already been listening to music. You know my, my parents had a lot of 45s. You know small records, that sort of thing, a lot of big records. I used to listen to a lot of 45s not so much albums when I was younger, and so you know I was familiar with Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and you know Alice Cooper and just a whole bunch of different things.

Steve:

Plus, I grew up listening to a lot of doo-wop music. My mom was big into doo-w, you know fifties music, that sort of thing. So I listened to a lot of. You know Chantilly Lace and all those kinds of songs and my dad was big into both country, old school country. You know Marty Robbins and you know all that kind of stuff and um, and he was into a lot of seventies rock, ccr, alice Cooper, led Zeppelin, the Beatles, all kinds of different things like that. So I grew up with a real hodgepodge of music.

Steve:

Plus, I grew up in a very faith-based family so a lot of church was involved, a lot of church music, that sort of thing. When I went over to my cousin's house when I was about I don't know seven, eight years old, something like that, I was introduced to the album Love Gun by Kiss and so looking at this record, this album cover, and seeing them on the front and there's all these women sitting there and it was like I was absolutely enamored Because again, at this time I was still playing with Star Wars toys and GI Joe and God knows what. There was no-transcript. You know toys, but they, they played music and it was just like it was the coolest thing on the planet for a little kid. And you know the music, christine 16, and you know all those kinds of songs that were on that album almost human and, uh, I think I stole your love was on there. Plaster caster, you know whatever hooligan I think was on there, I, I, I can't remember. It's been a while since I listened to the album, but just into it, just huge into it, and so my interest in music just escalated big time from there listening to a lot of different things.

Steve:

Now I didn't actually start playing until there's a little caveat I'm not going to take all your time but about nine years old, ten years old, I was living out in a little town called holly, minnesota, namely actually called Rolog, minnesota, which is out of town of Holly, tiny, tiny, tiny little town living out by my grandparents and my uncle borrowed me a guitar to use. It was an acoustic guitar and the strings were about, you know, three quarters of an inch away from the guitar neck and all I had was this Mel Bay book and I could make no sense of what I was doing. I had no instruction, you know, I just had this book and this guitar and it made no sense to me. Certainly I was listening to things like Ted Nugent and all this kind of stuff and what I was trying to do was, you know, strum this G chord or play these notes on the sixth string or God knows what it was. I don't remember what it was, but what I was trying to do and what I perceived guitar to be were not even in the same realm and it was a miserable failure. I did not do it and we wound up moving back to Fargo, north Dakota, and when I was 13, my parents bought me my first electric guitar and that was a completely different trajectory because I had a couple of lessons, learned, a couple of things.

Steve:

I didn't stay in lessons long, but I had a lot of like influence of some friends, some people at a local music store called Schmidt Music that I was affiliated with for many, many, many years. That showed me little things, little riffs, little you know Day Tripper and you know Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin, like little things. That made more sense in my brain and from there I started, you know, playing by ear. I would learn songs. I could learn songs off the records by listening to them over and over and over. That's how I learned how to play. You know, there weren't guitar magazines and stuff yet at that time. They were just getting popular and of course I'm living in Fargo, north Dakota, so they weren't overly available at that point in time. But that's where it all started for me. So, learning how to visualize chord, you know, power chord, movements. I didn't understand anything about theory, I didn't understand anything about chords, I just knew what little bit of information I had. And then, once the guitar magazine started becoming available, I would read those, you know, every single page in those books or those magazines to learn stuff. And that's where it all started. So, anyway, learning how to play.

Steve:

17 years old, I finally started teaching. I got my first teaching student when I was 17. I would drive to his house, and so in those first day, those first early years of teaching, I would drive to people's houses and the teaching just kind of took off. So I, you know, started having them come to me also at 17,. I graduated high school early and then went to college and studied music, and so I was doing all of those things at the same time. I had odd jobs working at Holiday Inn, worked at Pizza Hut for a number of years, worked at Schmidt Music, as I had mentioned. So I was never just like one job. Even when I was in college I never had one job. It was always different jobs, teaching in different places. I would work and then I started playing in bands in college and then started playing out when I was well, just about 20, I. And then I started playing in bands in college and then started playing out when I was well, just about 20, I suppose I started playing in bars, that sort of thing. So I had a lot of things on my plate all at once and that consisted, was consistent up until I started working for Guitar Zoom, as a matter of fact. So I had all these different jobs, started teaching At one point in my 20s I actually had over 100 students a week private students, because I was teaching seven days a week.

Steve:

I wasn't on the road yet with bands. I was playing in bands in the evenings and things, but I was teaching seven days a week. I had over 100 private students and lots of amazing you know experiences and a lot of these students I still talk to. A lot of them are still in bands playing. You know, it's just was was a really wonderful time.

Steve:

And then when I got into you know my it must've been in my early thirties, right somewhere around there late 20s or 30s I started teaching at a Montessori school. So I was teaching music. I taught music for about 14 years at a Montessori school. At that same time I was doing private lessons. I was working at a place called Elevate Rock School, which is kind of like School of Rock here in North Dakota, and I was teaching at the college. So I was teaching modern guitar studies at a local college. So I wasn't doing Pizza Hut anymore. I wasn't doing any of those. I still worked at Schmidt Music.

Steve:

But then I had this Montessori gig, which was really, really cool. I would teach toddlers through. At that time. It would have been sixth grade and then seventh grade and then eighth grade as we kept growing as a school. But I was doing all of those things all the time playing in bands. At this point I was traveling with bands. I was playing in bands in Minneapolis, which is about a four-hour drive for me. I was playing in a couple of different bands out there. One of them was a band named Avian which was like a power metal band all original material. We got to play with a lot of really great bands, met a lot of really wonderful musicians in Minneapolis still friends with them today and just doing all of these things.

Steve:

So at some point when I was in my you know again, late, late thirties, something like that, somewhere around there, everything's a haze for me because I was always so busy but at some point I was burning out just all these wonderful things I was doing. But too many things, just always too busy, was never home, never helping with. You know, at that point we had one daughter. I was married and, um, I was never home to help with the, with my young, with my daughter, and you know my, my wife, was running ragged trying to bring my daughter to. You know all these different things. You know she was dancing, she was going to. You know she was at Elevate doing music and just all these different things she had going on. And I was always so busy I was just never home and I could feel a strain of just all of these things that I was doing. You know, god had blessed me with a lot of opportunities. But I just, I was just overwhelmed with things.

Steve:

And then I was on break at the Montessori school. I was, I was having lunch and my phone rang and it was this guy, dan Denley, and he's like hey, I, you know, I saw some of your videos on YouTube. You know I'd been doing stuff like that on YouTube, just trying whatever I could to try and get my name out there. And uh, he's like, yeah, I saw some of your videos and you, you know, you play really good. And you seem like, uh, you know, you can teach good and blah, blah, blah, I'd like to hire you to do some guitar courses for me. And I was like, sure, I'll do that.

Steve:

So now I started doing guitar courses for him at night, overnight, when my, when my daughter was sleeping and, um, my wife was sleeping upstairs, I would do them downstairs in our basement and I wouldn't sleep. So I just wouldn't, wouldn't sleep. I just, you know, record these courses at night when I got home from everything I was doing, do the course, you know, get my daughter up, get ready for going to the Montessori school and then start the day over again. So I started doing that with him and, um, even more busy, and at some point he's like look, you're going to, you're going to burn yourself out, you're going to wind up divorced or dead If you don't slow down.

Steve:

What I'd like to do is I'd like to hire you to work with me and, um, you know, work at guitar, zoom, and you know, stop everything else that you're doing and just have a steady job, and he goes. I don't know that we'd be able to succeed financially, like this thing might fall, and he goes. I don't know that we'd be able to succeed financially, like this thing might fall, you know, fall apart. But I'd like to give you the opportunity, which was a huge blessing to me because, again, I was just never home, I was never around my family, and so I, you know, thought about it and I said, yeah, I, I, what I did was I, I thought about all the things I was doing in life and how much money I was making, which, honestly, was just never that much.

Steve:

You know how it is playing in bands and stuff. You just it's just really difficult to make a living and you know it was okay. But what I did was I tried to kind of summarize all of that into you know this number and what I tried to do is give him kind of a low ball number with the opportunity that I could actually get out of what I was doing. And he said you know, it's not unreasonable, but right now I just can't afford it. But I'd like to revisit this conversation further down the line. Well, come, whatever it was October, november, something like that of whatever year, okay, Probably the same year he's like look, we're going to give it a try, I'm going to try this, and if we fail the company goes under. But I want to give this a try and see if we can make this work with you. So he accepted that number, whatever it was at that time, and so, come January of that next year, I literally quit everything, everything and just started working with him.

Steve:

And I can't explain it, but it was like the first time in my life that I was actually able to sit down in the quiet, because my, at this point, my other daughter was born too. They were gone, my wife was gone, I was alone in the house and it was the first time I think I've ever just sat in silence and had a moment of peace, and it was like I knew at that point that I was never going to go back to being as busy as I was. I was just never going to go back to living the life that I led, even if it meant living in. You know, I mean, I don't live in a big house or drive a fancy car, anyway, I've never, never been like that. But but just, I was never going to let myself get into a situation where material things would make me force me to, um, you know, have to work all the time and you know I've been blessed with endorsements and and things like that, which is great, but, um, so anyway, that's where it was. And then I started working for Guitar Zoom and did that, you know, until I'm, until today. Now, you know I'm, I'm, I'm 55 now at the time of this recording.

Steve:

You know I like to play in bands and so I'll go out and play. I don't play every weekend. I don't play, you know, in a consistent bar band. I play with different, different friends of mine, different bands that you know need to fill in, or you know they put something together and we're going to do some shows or whatever. Um, I play in specialty things. I love that kind of stuff, just different kinds of unique experiences that I can have as a guitar player, as a musician and, um, you know, do some session work here and there, do some, you know, lessons on the side here and there as I've got time, um, you know, just different kinds of things like that that that are fun for me but not overwhelming myself with too much stuff, so I still have that availability. I'm now a grandfather my oldest just had a baby, and so I want to have time for all of those kinds of things, and so that's that's kind of my story. That's how I wound up where I'm at.

Steve:

You may have seen some of my videos and all that, or, obviously, listening to this or watching this on YouTube or something. So it was. You know, I'm blessed with every opportunity that I've had. I just, at some point, needed to make a choice on what it was I was doing and what it is that was was most important to me, and I play in church. That's incredibly important to me. My journey of faith is incredibly important to me, and my family is incredibly important to me. More important, you know all of those things. You know my faith, my family those are what's most important to me at the age of 55, more so than how fast I can play my scales or something like that. You know, and don't get me wrong, I was blessed with the opportunity to do all of that at a young age and develop and craft all of those you know, go to college and study and all those things get together with amazing musicians and friends, other guitar players and craft all of that when I was younger. So now I don't have to work as hard now at this age, which again I'm very thankful for.

Steve:

But anyway, I just thought to give you a little bit of a background on me. You know I get a lot of questions about Guitar Zoom. You know, is it my company? It is not my company. Um, it's a wonderful company. It's just I'm not going to take credit for something that's not mine. I've always just been the guy who smiles and strums and teaches. That's that's what I do for the company, that's what I do best and uh. So anyway, hope that was kind of interesting to you. Anyway, and thanks for people asking about my, my past and my background and things like that, and I wish you well and blessings to you and have a great day, all right.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Steve Stine

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

Wong Notes Artwork

Wong Notes

Premier Guitar
The Motivated Mind Artwork

The Motivated Mind

Scott Lynch