Building Guitars for Steve Vai, Jerry Cantrell & Slash | Stephen McSwain

How in the world do you get your first guitar build in Steve Vai's hands?

Well, you take some big risks and make some bold choices, and Stephen McSwain has certainly done plenty of both.

From hand carving horror-themed installations for Slash to working with world-renowned visual artists, Stephen has time and again gone where no luthier has gone before – and come back with plenty of amazing stories.

He joins me this week on Life With Strings Attached to tell a few of them and talk about some of the valuable lessons he's learned through it all.

McSwain Guitars: mcswainguitars.com

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:38 Oregon and US road trips
• 11:02 How Stephen became a guitar maker
• 17:22 Selling your first guitar to Steve Vai
• 24:40 Keith Richards and dealing with rejection
• 29:42 The Mt. Kissmore guitar
• 35:20 Stephen's business partner
• 40:31 A word from our sponsor
• 40:59 Making an unusual guitar for Slash
• 49:08 Stephen's history with art
• 53:30 The joy of playing live
• 1:01:20 Why go into the guitar business?