Banker Custom Guitars

Just looking back through some of the photos Evan Bartleson took with my guitars. It seemed effortless in the moment but I was always blown away by what he could capture.

I got the terrible news that my dear friend Evan Bartleson passed away unexpectedly yesterday evening. Evan was one of my biggest supporters from the start, he told everyone he thought would listen about my guitars and helped me grow from a nobody to where I am now. He was a gifted photographer and was the man behind the camera for so many of my photos, as well as a great musician who has played in several Atlanta bands over the years.
Evan was also the man behind the curtain at Merch Mountain alongside the late Britt Turner, and has been an integral part of the BlackBerry Smoke team since their early days. He loved spending time in the wilderness, had great taste in music and guitars, and was always a trusted confidant and friend who understood the nuances and inner workings of the music world in a way that most people don’t. And he always knew the best spot to go disappear and hear the best sound at all the venues in town. He was as good and genuine a person as you’ll ever come across in this life, and I am going to miss him a lot.

My heart goes out to his wife Stacey, and the entire Blackberry Smoke family who have dealt with so much grief recently. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Rochness Monster

Another bird flew the coop, see if you can spot it this summer on the road with

We lost a good one this week. William Hughes, my fathers younger brother aka my Uncle Bill passed away late Monday night. He was always quick with a joke or smartass remark no matter how inappropriate the situation may be. He loved fast cars, hunting, rock and roll, and of course guitars. The smell of unburnt fuel and exhaust drifting into the cab of his Chevy C10 Scottsdale will forever be burned into my memory. He was one of the first people who paid me real actual dollars to build him a custom guitar. In fact when I first started showing interest in playing guitar as a 13 year old kid, he brought over his ‘76 Ovation Balladeer and a fresh pack of Dean Markley Bronze strings (the ones that came with the sticker in every pack) for me to learn with. It was the first real guitar I had laid my hands on outside of the nylon string Yamahas we had in music class. I sat in my bedroom and played it until my fingers were raw, because he told me that learning on an acoustic would make me a stronger player for whenever it came time to get an electric guitar. He was right.

So here’s to my Uncle Bill, a man who had a big influence on my life and who I am today. You will be missed.
And they better have Labatt Blue bottles in heaven, if they know what’s good for em’.

Now that’s a bass

Roll Tide

There are only two color stages at work here, a base coat of nitro lacquer with silver metallic powder mixed in (I use “Fine Brilliant Aluminum” from Crescent Bronze), and a second stage of nitro with pure black aniline dye. The blueish halo effect is due to the fact that aniline powder dyes are not lightfast and have a slight fading effect. It’s the same reason why most ‘59 Les Paul’s have varying degrees of a dulled ice tea shade, when those guitars were brand new they were lemon yellow with a cherry red sunburst. The later iterations used a different type of dye that was not as susceptible to UV fading, which is why they held their original color better.

Anyway, as outdated and obsolete as aniline may be, I love the degradation factor that it adds to a finish. The colors really mellow out and blend together beautifully giving it more depth and complexity.