Latest / The Chris and Mike Show / #146 - Monkeyhouse Guitars - Custom Guitar Builder

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#146 - Monkeyhouse Guitars - Custom Guitar Builder · The Chris and Mike Show

• 0:07
  Crazy. Well, the boys and girls and
• 0:09
  twitchers, Yeah. Welcome Monkey House Guitars.
• 0:16
  Rock'n'roll, yeah. That's Mike.
• 0:38
  That's Mike playing Mike. It's Mike Squared.
• 0:56
  That was that thing we talked about last episode or with with
• 0:59
  Joe, just Joe from Syracuse, the space in a song and how cool it
• 1:04
  is for a crowd when you're jamming out.
• 1:06
  Then all of a sudden everything just stops.
• 1:08
  And you start right on time. Right back up, right?
• 1:12
  What those people don't realize is it's that fascinating for the
• 1:15
  three of us as musicians. Too.
• 1:17
  Yeah, 'cause then you 'cause then you hit it.
• 1:19
  You're like, fuck yeah. Nailed it.
• 1:21
  Magic every time. Him and I just said at the same
• 1:23
  time, that's the magic. Nailed it, nailed it.
• 1:26
  So if you're just joining us, we're live on Twitch and YouTube
• 1:28
  with Mike from Monkey House Guitars.
• 1:30
  And of course, I'm Chris. He's Mike.
• 1:31
  This is the Chris and Mike show coming to you live for what, 20
• 1:35
  four countries now? 24 countries.
• 1:38
  We just picked up Brazil. Just picked up Brazil, not the
• 1:41
  wax the country. So I'm going to, I'm going to
• 1:46
  sit back and let you guys geek out on the building of guitar
• 1:49
  stuff. Because a lot of the, a lot of
• 1:50
  the stuff that that I try to book for the show is stuff that
• 1:54
  helps kind of feed into Mike's desires and love and passion for
• 1:59
  the guitar and, and talking music and the scales and like,
• 2:02
  you know. My healthy addictions.
• 2:04
  Right, Yeah, the the theory of the theory of theory of music
• 2:07
  and all that kind of stuff. I just like having conversations
• 2:09
  and learning stuff. And so, you know, you guys just
• 2:12
  kind of do your thing and I'll interject and I'll learn and
• 2:15
  we'll share and we'll go from there.
• 2:17
  And I'm going to share your screen too, at some point in
• 2:19
  time. So just take it away there, Mike
• 2:20
  and Mike. All right, yeah, I've been like
• 2:23
  a little kid at Christmas. So if I get tongue tied, I know
• 2:26
  you might find this hard to believe as a guitar builder, but
• 2:29
  just the people that you've built guitars for and the level,
• 2:32
  and we'll talk about this, but the level you've achieved is the
• 2:36
  same level of success we felt when Metal Blade came to us and
• 2:40
  when Universal came to Chris. And you know when labels start
• 2:44
  noticing that something that you planted the seed for and hope
• 2:49
  that people understood what you were trying to get across.
• 2:52
  When that happens man, explain what that feeling's like.
• 2:59
  Honestly. It's hard to put the words right
• 3:02
  because it's like, wait, what? Who wants me to build a guitar?
• 3:06
  Yeah, it absolutely is. And honestly, so I, I've started
• 3:12
  talking to Peter and I think it was, I want to say like late
• 3:18
  April, early May when I talked. To him, OK, so, so back it up a
• 3:22
  little bit, tell people who Peter is, and then I want to
• 3:25
  know how you actually came to have a conversation with Peter.
• 3:28
  OK. And that's that's actually a
• 3:29
  really good story how that happens.
• 3:32
  So. That's why we're here.
• 3:33
  Yeah, so flashback to 1994 when Candlebox was out, came out.
• 3:42
  Yeah, that's that's when Mike and I met man.
• 3:44
  At the show. Right.
• 3:46
  Yeah. Literally.
• 3:47
  That album came out and it literally changed my life.
• 3:51
  Me too, brother. I had been, I'd been at that
• 3:53
  point, I'd been playing, I started playing guitar like my
• 3:55
  freshman year in high school and I I suck.
• 3:58
  I still suck to this day. I'm horrible at it, but I always
• 4:01
  have the. Same thing.
• 4:02
  Yeah, but I've always had a love, just a passion for
• 4:05
  guitars. Yes, that album came out and I
• 4:09
  would literally sit there, push play and just try as best I
• 4:14
  could play that whole album all the way through start to finish,
• 4:16
  you know, just fumble my way through the fucking song.
• 4:18
  But I'm sure anybody listening, it probably sounded like shit.
• 4:21
  But that album touched me and it it, you know, it like a deep
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  way, you know, just, it was so profound.
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  So the story with how Peter Clett and I even got in contact
• 4:37
  with each other. So we had the family over here
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  at my house, we're all sitting out, hanging out outside, the
• 4:46
  kids are playing in the pool and shit.
• 4:48
  And my wife and I had decided that day.
• 4:50
  I don't drink very often at all, but we decided that day Fucking
• 4:54
  Bloody Mary sounds so good, you know so.
• 4:58
  Damn right. Had one that led to another led
• 5:01
  to another, you know, and we're sitting on the back porch
• 5:05
  enjoying the sun, enjoying the weather.
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  We had music playing it just it was a great day.
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  It was just perfect day. And I'm probably 5 or 6 Bloody
• 5:14
  Marys deep at this point, feeling no pain, you know, and
• 5:18
  candle box thong comes on right? And like, Oh, fucking love this
• 5:23
  band. I haven't listened to them in so
• 5:24
  long, you know, but it I was just like, oh, and just sat.
• 5:28
  There. Yeah, exactly.
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  Just basking in it and, and sitting there next to my wife,
• 5:34
  just listen to the song. And I was like, you know what,
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  what would be awesome, what would just literally be like
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  bucket list is to build a car for Peter Clay.
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  That would be fucking amazing. I could die at that point, you
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  know. And so a couple more drinks, a
• 5:53
  little more liquid courage, and I'm like, I wonder if he's on
• 5:56
  Facebook, I'm going to look him up.
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  No, you know, so I look him up and let it.
• 6:00
  There's his personal Facebook page, the same.
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  Way Chris found you, Yeah. Yeah, so I, so I just send him a
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  friend request and send him a message, you know, explaining
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  who I am, what I do. And, you know, I was like, your
• 6:16
  music is literally part of my DNA.
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  It's in my blood, you know, and I was like, if you would allow
• 6:25
  me to, I would love to build you a guitar.
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  I was like, I don't want any money from you.
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  It's not a scam. I don't want anything from you.
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  I just want to build you a guitar, you know that's.
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  So cool. Send.
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  You know, I was like, I'm going to shoot my shot.
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  He's probably going to deny the friend request and not even read
• 6:44
  the message. But I tried, you know?
• 6:47
  Yeah. Yeah.
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  And this was a Sunday evening and I get up Monday morning, get
• 6:52
  to work, check my phone, and I've got a message from Peter
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  Klatt. And I was like, holy shit.
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  You know, And he's like, hey, thanks for the kind words, blah,
• 7:03
  blah, blah. This guitar thing really sounds
• 7:06
  interesting. I'd, I'd like to talk to you
• 7:08
  more about it. And I'm like crawling out of my
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  skin, you know? I'm like, Oh my God, fucking
• 7:15
  Peter Klatt, you know, like, holy.
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  Shit. Going crazy I was.
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  Just now, let me ask you one question at this point.
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  Yeah. How much of A social media
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  presence did you have at the time for him to do any kind of
• 7:27
  research on you? Honestly, I don't know that he
• 7:31
  did any research on me. I'm sure he probably did some,
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  but not a lot because he didn't even.
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  He didn't even start following my page until after he had the
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  first guitar. That's crazy.
• 7:45
  Yeah, yeah. So it wasn't like, I don't know
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  honestly, that that'd be a good question for him because y'all
• 7:53
  are going to get him on your show.
• 7:55
  It's you're. Going to help us do that, right?
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  Absolutely, absolutely. I'll talk to him and be like.
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  Hey, he's one of my heroes. Dude, yeah, that would be
• 8:02
  fantastic. That would be dude, that that
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  would be our moment of like, holy shit.
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  Because really, Mike can MM and I's entire the reason Mike and I
• 8:10
  know each other is because the candle box.
• 8:12
  I mean, we're at a we're we're at a we're at a venue with what,
• 8:15
  2500 people? And I just happen to be
• 8:17
  standing. And he'll remember this show
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  because the power went out. Yeah, for about what, 15
• 8:22
  minutes? Now where was that at?
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  Where was that show at? The electric ballroom in Tempe,
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  AZ, right down the road from ASU.
• 8:29
  No, yeah. Yeah, Chris, I ended up opening
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  up for the Marshall Tucker Band there, maybe, I don't know, six
• 8:37
  months later after that show. But imagine, imagine how the
• 8:40
  world works if I didn't go to that show.
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  If Mike didn't go to that show by himself, mind you, and I'm
• 8:45
  not standing behind him singing along with Kevin Martin the
• 8:48
  entire time. We told the story before.
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  So the short version, Mike kept looking back at me and I'm like,
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  who's this motherfucker staring me down?
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  And then I'm just rocking out. And then when the power goes
• 8:58
  out, he busts out this business, right?
• 9:01
  But he busts out this business card.
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  He's like, I'm in a band. I'm looking for a singer.
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  And I was like, oh shit, alright.
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  And here we are, 30 some odd years later.
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  Yeah. Right Doc has a candy box.
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  Show how crazy. Yeah, exactly so.
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  Cedar touched all of our lives, yeah.
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  Yeah. It's crazy.
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  So like when he thinks about what I'm sure he doesn't,
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  Everybody has this moment. What have I done with my life,
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  right? Right.
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  When you hear from somebody so far removed as the three of us,
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  think about how many other people are in that boat where
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  those first few albums from Candlebox really did change a
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  lot of life. A burner man.
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  And yeah, Lucy. And so that that's something
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  funny because Kevin Martin said something to the effect of that.
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  He hates that album that he he didn't like it.
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  And to me, I'm like, dude, that album won.
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  It was an amazing, amazing album, but it was like it was a
• 9:59
  vibe. It it was that album to me is
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  like a moment in time. That's a it was a vibe.
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  Oh, it was it was so ahead of its time.
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  And so it just, it was fucking amazing.
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  And I'm like, I wish you could listen to that album that you
• 10:13
  hate through somebody else of the years, you know, and, and
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  just appreciate it the way somebody else does.
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  Because to me, and I think all three of us at that time had the
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  same thought, what are they going to fought this, their
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  debut album is one of the greatest debut albums of all
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  time in my. Ever.
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  Yeah. And I was like, how do you
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  follow that up, right? And then as a guitar player,
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  Peter took it to the next level. Absolutely.
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  He was like, here's what I'm going to do, right?
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  You know, right. Because to me, it was that
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  sophomore, you know, you, you'd think about that sophomore
• 10:49
  slump. There's actually was a
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  graduated. Level.
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  Absolutely. Here's what we're.
• 10:54
  Yeah, if, if you can, if you can fathom stepping it up a notch
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  from that first album, you know, which is just that had to have
• 11:02
  been such a monumental feat to be like, OK, we've got to top
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  that somehow. Yeah.
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  Yeah, right. But so, yeah, how how you were
• 11:12
  saying it's funny how things circle around and come around.
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  So it was I, I want to say it was like 24 hours before, like
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  the day before I had texted Peter.
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  So it would have been that sad Friday or Saturday of that
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  weekend. A guy that lives and Pete lives
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  in Florida, a guy that he's friends with had talked to Peter
• 11:39
  and he's like, hey, this buddy of mine owns this company and
• 11:42
  they make guitar pickups. I want to introduce you so Peter
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  and this guy Jeff Richards meet each other.
• 11:49
  Jeff runs Carondelet pickups and.
• 11:52
  I just started following them too after I saw your.
• 11:55
  Yeah, and Jeff, same way, huge fan of Candlebox and he's
• 12:00
  talking with Pete and like, man, I want, I want to give you a set
• 12:03
  of my pickups so you can try them out and play them.
• 12:06
  And Peter's like, dude, I would love to take a set of your
• 12:09
  pickups, but I don't have a guitar to put them in.
• 12:11
  You know, I'm not touching any of my vintage shit.
• 12:14
  I'm not, I'm not putting those in any of my existing guitars.
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  I don't have one to put them in. If something comes along to
• 12:20
  where I've got a guitar to put them in, then you know, I'd, I
• 12:22
  would love to try them out for you.
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  And so when I was having a conversation with Jeff and he
• 12:30
  walks away from that kind of just, you know, deflated, like,
• 12:34
  oh man, I just met this guy and I want, I wanted him to have a
• 12:38
  set of my pickup so bad. And then 24 hours later, it's
• 12:43
  getting a hold of him again, like, hey, some dude in Kansas
• 12:47
  is building me a guitar. Do you want to put your pickups
• 12:50
  in it, You know? And so Jeff was like, it was
• 12:53
  like the skies, the skies just opened up and the stars align
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  just right. And the timing just couldn't
• 12:58
  have been more perfect on any of it, you know?
• 13:02
  Especially for I, I would imagine, you know, when he's
• 13:06
  sitting here, he'll say the same thing in reverse, that as much
• 13:10
  as he fell in love with that guitar, it the timing was right
• 13:14
  for him too, right? He got an instrument.
• 13:16
  I have one behind me that I tell Chris all the time.
• 13:19
  It's a Charvel STX Custom. It's probably like an 89 or 90
• 13:23
  if I had to guess. That thing can do things that
• 13:29
  any other guitar I've ever picked up just can't.
• 13:31
  It's a special piece of wood connected to a special neck,
• 13:35
  right? There's just something special
• 13:36
  about it. It's got that it quality.
• 13:39
  Right, right. I think that's what that guitar
• 13:42
  that you built for him for surely turned into for Peter
• 13:45
  because every photo I see with him lately, he's playing your
• 13:48
  guitar. So, yeah, and.
• 13:49
  That's why I was so excited to talk to you for.
• 13:51
  Sure. And and that was honestly that
• 13:53
  was the part that blew me away more than him getting a hold of
• 13:59
  me or answering, you know, responding to me and saying,
• 14:02
  yeah, build me one and building it and meeting him and giving it
• 14:06
  to him. That part was cool, but the so
• 14:11
  I, I gave that to him. We, we drove down to Oklahoma,
• 14:14
  delivered it to him, got to hang out with them, see the show, and
• 14:18
  then two days later he met up with Jet Jeff from Karatella and
• 14:23
  got the pickup swapped out and it was so funny so.
• 14:27
  What did you have in there? It had a set of Guitar Marie
• 14:31
  pickups in it that were they were supposed to be wound to Tim
• 14:35
  Shaw Vintage Tim Shaw specs. And as soon as Peter plugged it
• 14:41
  in, started playing it, he's like, oh man, these pickups are
• 14:43
  too bright. You know, I need I need them to
• 14:45
  be darker da, da, da. So then I was kind of you know,
• 14:50
  and so two days later they're in Louisiana and he messages me
• 14:55
  that morning and he's like, Hey, I wanted to want to talk with
• 14:59
  you about this. I don't want to step on your
• 15:01
  toes or anything, but I've got this guy here that wants to put
• 15:04
  a put different set of pickups into this guitar.
• 15:08
  Is it cool with you if I have him swap the pickups out?
• 15:11
  You know, like, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I want
• 15:13
  to get, I want to play this thing every night.
• 15:16
  And I was like, holy shit, yeah, do whatever you want to do.
• 15:20
  You know, I don't if you want to play it every night, I don't
• 15:23
  give a shit what you do to it. So.
• 15:26
  Now, let let me ask you this real quick.
• 15:28
  Yeah, as a luthier, which is what a guitar builder is called,
• 15:32
  right? So now we're flipping over into
• 15:34
  your workshop. All right, are luthiers that
• 15:41
  concerned about the pickups? Is that is important as the
• 15:47
  shape, the build, the piece of wood and you're like, in your
• 15:51
  experience, I I know with this situation, you know, he's such a
• 15:55
  great guitar player and has spoke to us all.
• 15:57
  It's like whatever you need to do to be you, that's what we
• 16:00
  want, right? Right.
• 16:02
  But on the you know, on the average, are the pickups that
• 16:06
  important to the builder? To to me, no.
• 16:15
  And that's what I picked up on. So I want to know, like your
• 16:18
  peers, your colleagues, you know, I don't know a lot of
• 16:21
  people who build actually. You're the only person that
• 16:24
  builds builds. Guitars, let's be honest.
• 16:26
  Right. And I hate, I hate using the
• 16:29
  term luthier or like being described as a luthier because
• 16:34
  I've, I feel like a luthier is someone who's gone to school and
• 16:39
  studied and studied under someone and learned the craft
• 16:43
  over years, you know, and, and really put a lot of schooling
• 16:48
  and work into it. I've started doing this shit as
• 16:52
  a challenge to myself just to see if I could do it, you know,
• 16:55
  and. Here's here's what I'm going to
• 16:57
  say about that. I I know what you're saying and
• 17:01
  I would feel the same way because Chris has complimented
• 17:04
  me the whole time we've been together for being a humble
• 17:06
  musician, right? And I try and be that way for
• 17:08
  sure. But the master, Eddie Van Halen
• 17:13
  himself, who was also a guitar builder and a player, right,
• 17:16
  said it does. It doesn't matter how you get
• 17:19
  there. You got there, right?
• 17:20
  Somebody who everybody in the rock world knows who Peter Clutt
• 17:25
  is of camera blocks, right? So you built a guitar that spoke
• 17:29
  to him so much that he wants to play it every night.
• 17:31
  I would say it doesn't matter how you got there, you got
• 17:34
  there. Right, right.
• 17:35
  Right. I told you online and I'm
• 17:37
  telling you now to the world. Kudos, man.
• 17:40
  That's so cool. Absolutely.
• 17:42
  Thank you. And that that's been like the,
• 17:46
  the biggest compliment towards my work that I ever could have
• 17:51
  received was the fact that, like you said, every single show
• 17:57
  since he, since he got that guitar, he's played.
• 18:00
  It and this is the this, this is the guitar that this is the
• 18:03
  guitar I'm sharing, correct? Yeah, yeah, that's the right one
• 18:06
  right there. That was right after we got
• 18:08
  there. That was them doing sound check
• 18:10
  right after I delivered it. My wife hates that picture.
• 18:15
  She's all blurry in it. To rock'n'roll, man, that's and
• 18:20
  I, I was at that concert in Arizona when they, when they
• 18:23
  played in Arizona before with Three Doors Down opening up.
• 18:25
  That was a phenomenal show. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:28
  Oh, they. Still sound great.
• 18:29
  Oh. You you watch them now playing,
• 18:31
  playing their shows on this reunion tour and those guys have
• 18:36
  not missed a beat in 30. No, no, there's always that.
• 18:41
  And from a vocal, a singer standpoint, because as a singer,
• 18:43
  I look at the singers he was he was lights out, man.
• 18:46
  He hit the shit that I was like I was I was sitting in there
• 18:48
  like, come on. I was just waiting for the hit,
• 18:50
  waiting for the note and I'm like, look about what?
• 18:52
  Damn, he hit the. Note that's.
• 18:54
  Awesome. Yeah, they're they're too
• 18:56
  amazing. Still, they are.
• 18:58
  Absolutely. Yeah, incredible.
• 19:00
  It's almost better because it's more relaxed.
• 19:03
  Right. Yes.
• 19:05
  You know, they, they know where the groove is now.
• 19:09
  But that's me being nervous as hell.
• 19:14
  That's a great picture, man, is. I love it.
• 19:18
  My wife loved when we went on that trip and went to deliver
• 19:22
  that guitar. That whole day leading up to
• 19:25
  that, she's like, I love this because you're nervous like a
• 19:28
  school kid right now, you know, like you're.
• 19:31
  That's how I felt talking to you today, dude.
• 19:33
  You did Mike was Mike was all excited about you come when I
• 19:36
  told Mike I got you on the show, I mean, and not a bad thing, but
• 19:40
  he just he couldn't shut up about it.
• 19:42
  Like like we, we would talk, you know, and then we were like, oh,
• 19:44
  the next show's coming up and then we had somebody was
• 19:46
  supposed to come on. They couldn't come on and then
• 19:49
  we ended up doing we, we were late, just Joe was late.
• 19:53
  So then we were I was going on the list of who is coming on.
• 19:55
  He's like, Oh yeah, Monkey House guitars.
• 19:57
  So. You know it's but it's it's cool
• 20:00
  though, dude, because that's the thing.
• 20:01
  It's that's. What's the thing I love most in
• 20:03
  the world? Just like we're going to be
• 20:05
  kindred spirits there, right? I've been playing guitars since
• 20:08
  we were young kids, so. And that's the whole point of
• 20:12
  this man. It's connecting and, and, you
• 20:14
  know, learning and then you know, so keep talking.
• 20:16
  I'm enjoying the, I'm enjoying the conversation.
• 20:19
  No, man, talk to us about go. I didn't know you got to go
• 20:22
  deliver the guitar to him and have that experience.
• 20:25
  You know that's. Cool, yeah.
• 20:27
  Go through that and then what happened from there?
• 20:29
  So that was getting there. We we drove down there, got
• 20:36
  checked into our hotel room. Pete had texted and was like,
• 20:40
  hey, sound check starting here like in 20 minutes or something.
• 20:44
  Go ahead and come to the venue. Da da da.
• 20:47
  One of our security guys will show you, man, all that, you
• 20:49
  know this shit. And so we walking through this
• 20:52
  hotel and casino carrying a guitar in a case, you know, and
• 20:55
  by that point, you know, there's people lining up at the box
• 20:59
  office to buy tickets. And the dude like sees us, Hey,
• 21:03
  come on through and waves us past every we walk right past
• 21:07
  him and he walks us in and I'll come this way.
• 21:11
  I'll, I'll take you down there and opens the door and you're
• 21:15
  looking down into the venue and they're all on stage right now
• 21:18
  doing sound check, you know, and I was just like, Oh my God, you
• 21:21
  know, like this really happening.
• 21:23
  Holy shit. And we're walking down the aisle
• 21:25
  to go towards the stage and one of the guys on the stage into a
• 21:30
  microphone goes, Hey, Pete, your guitar is here.
• 21:35
  I was just like, oh shit, you know, and.
• 21:38
  Just got real. Yeah, And walk up on stage, meet
• 21:42
  him, shake his hand, get to meet everybody.
• 21:44
  And he's like, you know, like Christmas, you know, like, I
• 21:46
  can't wait to see this, you know, takes it out and it's
• 21:49
  like, Oh my God, you know, checking it out, hands it off to
• 21:52
  his tech. He's like, take the wireless and
• 21:54
  the other shit off my Les Paul and put it on there.
• 21:56
  I want to play it, you know, and I'm just geeking out so hard.
• 22:01
  What was it like when you heard it played through a real rig for
• 22:06
  the first time like that? Fucking amazing.
• 22:09
  I can't imagine dude. I did I post.
• 22:11
  I think I posted a video of them doing one song with that guitar
• 22:17
  during sound check, but hearing it played through that rig in
• 22:23
  his hands was a fucking religious experience.
• 22:26
  You know I bet, I bet because that's your baby, man.
• 22:29
  Oh my God, I literally, I stood there recording him playing
• 22:34
  while they're playing it and almost had tears in my eyes, you
• 22:39
  know? Just like I cannot believe this
• 22:41
  is fucking happening, you know? Yeah, when I'm real, when I told
• 22:44
  you kudos, man, I meant it on that level, you know, because
• 22:48
  Chris and I have played at that level, right?
• 22:50
  When those people are there and they're there to see your
• 22:53
  creation, or in your case, to use your creation to see theirs
• 22:58
  to fruition, that's a whole nother level.
• 23:01
  It just is. It was.
• 23:02
  It was unreal. When I said the Charvel will do
• 23:06
  things for me that no other guitars done, that's what I
• 23:09
  mean. When he heard yours played
• 23:11
  through his rig, his all those synapses in his brain lit up on
• 23:15
  a different level, right? He's like, that's what I was
• 23:17
  looking to hear. Right.
• 23:19
  And that gives me goosebumps thinking about it, because I've
• 23:22
  played those guitars. I know what that feeling's like,
• 23:24
  man. Yeah, it's just it is a
• 23:27
  religious experience. I've always said music is my
• 23:29
  religion. I don't mean that to hurt
• 23:31
  people's feelings. I mean that's what makes me me,
• 23:34
  right? It took me a long time to figure
• 23:36
  that out, but that's what it is. It's just I use it to make
• 23:40
  myself peaceful, right? Right.
• 23:42
  Absolutely keeps. Keeps me sane, you know?
• 23:46
  And that's what he heard. You know, you met his needs.
• 23:49
  And it's when I heard or when I read that and I saw that video
• 23:53
  you're talking about, that was what was going through my mind.
• 23:56
  I'm like, how cool for somebody I've never heard of to have
• 24:00
  built a guitar for somebody that I've idolized since, like you
• 24:05
  said, 1994. As a composer, as somebody who
• 24:09
  had a tone I fell in love with his clean tone was so.
• 24:13
  Outstanding. Anybody can have a distorted
• 24:16
  tone, and there's good distorted tones and bad distorted tones
• 24:20
  there are, right? Because some of them great on my
• 24:22
  nerves. But his clean tone, and that's
• 24:25
  the one that will always get you in trouble, right, is one of the
• 24:28
  most perfect clean tones in the history of the world.
• 24:31
  And my, oh, it is. It's so beautiful.
• 24:33
  So just gnarling, you know? So when you said that those
• 24:37
  pickups were too bright for him, yeah, I can almost kind of
• 24:40
  picture what he was saying because his top end is very
• 24:44
  subtle and that's what I love about it.
• 24:49
  Yeah, and that's once he, once he got those Carondelet pickups
• 24:52
  in it, they played. So they played a show that night
• 24:59
  and then I think they played one more and then they had a break
• 25:01
  for like a week or two. And then they were going to play
• 25:06
  a show in Syracuse, NY And the day of that show, it was like
• 25:13
  late morning, early afternoon. I had texted him and was just
• 25:18
  like, hey, saw you guys are playing in New York tonight.
• 25:21
  I was curious if you brought my guitar with you, if you're going
• 25:25
  to be playing it. Because if so, I'm going to be
• 25:27
  like, scouring the Internet tomorrow for pictures and
• 25:30
  videos. I want to see it, you know, if
• 25:32
  you brought it with you. And so, dude, he traveled from
• 25:35
  Florida to New York to play this one show.
• 25:39
  And he texts me back and he says, yeah, that's the only
• 25:41
  guitar I brought. That's so.
• 25:44
  Cool, man. Oh, dude, I my heart dropped.
• 25:46
  I was like, holy shit. You know, like you left your Les
• 25:51
  Paul at home, You know, Right? That would be like, so that
• 25:55
  would be like the equivalent of me telling you I left the
• 25:58
  Charvel, right? The one guitar I know I can play
• 26:01
  and always be successful even on my bad days, right?
• 26:04
  That that's what he counted on from you, right.
• 26:07
  To put it into perspective, for people who are not a musician,
• 26:10
  who are just listening to us geek out about music, and
• 26:12
  they're like, what are they talking about This.
• 26:15
  He brought one guitar. And for a professional musician,
• 26:19
  that's all you have. You get one chance.
• 26:20
  So yeah, yeah. And I was like, I, as weird as
• 26:24
  it was, I was so stressed out that day after he told me that,
• 26:28
  I was like, Oh my God, what if something goes wrong?
• 26:30
  What if what if something goes wrong with it or it fucks up?
• 26:33
  That's all on me, you know. And this, this is his guitar,
• 26:37
  right? No.
• 26:38
  So that one that you've got pulled up there, that one is for
• 26:42
  Davy French of Everclear. Oh, OK, 'cause it looked like
• 26:45
  it. I'm I'm sorry.
• 26:46
  Yeah, yeah, Davey and and Pete's first one are real similar.
• 26:49
  There's subtle differences, the inlays, gold hardware, that kind
• 26:55
  of shit. Yeah, I told Chris before we
• 26:58
  started. He was another person that you
• 27:00
  had built a guitar for and the other guitar player wanted one
• 27:03
  as well. Right.
• 27:04
  Yeah, so our Alex Akus, I'm getting ready to start building
• 27:07
  1 for him also. I can't remember his name for
• 27:10
  some reason. Yeah, practically, it's hard to
• 27:12
  say. Yeah, so I'm.
• 27:13
  Just I'm just, I'm just pimping your product.
• 27:15
  What are you guys are talking, man?
• 27:16
  Absolutely. Yeah, great pictures.
• 27:18
  Dude, yeah, no. So this is this is Peters.
• 27:20
  That's Davies. It's got the gold hardware
• 27:22
  Peters has OK Chrome hardware. Yeah, that's Davies.
• 27:27
  So how and how that came about with Davey.
• 27:31
  Davey and Peter grew up together, went to high school
• 27:35
  together and shit. So they've shown another since
• 27:37
  they were kids. And so after meeting Peter
• 27:44
  getting the guitar delivered in Oklahoma, we were driving home
• 27:48
  the next day and my wife and I are in the car and she's like Oh
• 27:51
  my God. Peter Collect just made a post
• 27:54
  on his Facebook about your guitar, you know, and we're,
• 27:58
  we've, we've got 4 hours of Hwy. ahead of us and I'm like, we'll
• 28:01
  keep checking his post because I guarantee you he's friends with
• 28:05
  other guitarists. He's friends with other famous
• 28:08
  guitarists. For sure.
• 28:10
  Yeah, so the whole time she she keeps checking that post, OK,
• 28:13
  This person liked it. This person commented on it.
• 28:16
  And you know, she's like pulling them up and, well, Davey.
• 28:19
  I'm sure my name came up in that conversation, yeah.
• 28:21
  Yeah, right. But, you know, and she's like
• 28:24
  Davey French liked it and was like, man, I need one of those.
• 28:27
  And I was like, that's the dude from fucking Everclear, you
• 28:29
  know, so so we get home. I think honestly, I don't even
• 28:33
  think we made it home. I think we stopped for gas.
• 28:36
  And so I pulled up Dave, sent him a friend request and you
• 28:41
  know, I commented on replied to his comment and I was like, hey,
• 28:44
  I know a guy you know, and by the.
• 28:47
  Time we get back home. I'm friends with messaging.
• 28:50
  Me like, hey, let's, let's talk about this.
• 28:52
  You know, I, I, I love that. I want one of those.
• 28:56
  And I was like, fuck, yeah. So he's sending me.
• 29:00
  So here's a question here. Here's here's a question.
• 29:02
  I'm interrupt you, but but because I you know, and a part
• 29:05
  of my ignorance, right? Because I'm just a singer, OK,
• 29:08
  Guitar makers are diamond, they're rock'n'roll band Rhino.
• 29:12
  But but I mean anybody, I'm not going to say anybody can make it
• 29:15
  to car. But guitar builders, there's a
• 29:16
  ton of guitar builders in the world, right?
• 29:18
  Right, right. OK, so, so so what's making
• 29:22
  Monkey House guitars stand out to the fact that you have Peter
• 29:26
  from Candlebox and then David from Everclare.
• 29:28
  I'm sure there's more that that are are going to start, you
• 29:31
  know, knocking on your door to get guitars made because again,
• 29:34
  this is Peter from Candlebox right now.
• 29:36
  A sound check, as he alluded to earlier in this conversation,
• 29:40
  that's the only guitar he took to his show.
• 29:43
  So what is it that makes your guitars different, Mike?
• 29:46
  That these musicians are literally just looking at it
• 29:49
  being like, I want this. Right, that's a bad.
• 29:51
  Question. That is a damn good question.
• 29:53
  I wish I had an answer to it. Is it somewhere between you have
• 30:04
  the skill, the passion, and the luck of the stars all aligned at
• 30:08
  the right time? I, I think it's got to be that
• 30:11
  and I feel like it's, it's yeah, just luck and everything
• 30:14
  aligned. Just riot.
• 30:17
  I think a better way to ask Chris's question is, in your
• 30:20
  opinion, what do you do? Because you have to do something
• 30:24
  differently. I don't want you to divulge your
• 30:26
  trade secrets Like we always tell authors, don't give your
• 30:29
  book away, but right, Right. And and you, you wouldn't
• 30:32
  anyway. But you know, kind of in your
• 30:35
  own words, answer his question because I'm curious too.
• 30:38
  What do you think you do differently?
• 30:40
  So honestly, I, I feel like, and so there's one, one other guy,
• 30:46
  he's a customer of mine. He he owns two of my guitars
• 30:50
  right now. He's gotten a hold of me,
• 30:54
  consigned a build. He's got two of them.
• 30:57
  And here pretty soon, Peter and that guy are going to be the
• 31:00
  only two people on the planet that have more than one of my
• 31:04
  guitars. That guy commented on on one of
• 31:11
  my posts. I can't remember which one it
• 31:12
  was, I think it was a post about art from Everclear wanting one
• 31:17
  of my guitars and why he loved it.
• 31:20
  Might have been one about Peter, I'm not sure, but he commented
• 31:23
  on it and was like, I'm pretty sure it's the neck.
• 31:26
  And that's the only thing I can figure because anyone that's.
• 31:29
  What I noticed, that's what I wanted to hear you say.
• 31:32
  Like like you said, to a degree anybody can build a guitar,
• 31:38
  right? Building a neck is kind of a
• 31:40
  whole animal in and of itself, but hand carving a neck gives.
• 31:47
  It a oh, you hand carve it. Yeah, yeah, every.
• 31:50
  Building was fucking from scratch man.
• 31:52
  Every single thing is from scratch.
• 31:54
  So my let me show you real quick.
• 31:58
  Absolutely. Lesson in guitar building,
• 32:02
  ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, buddy.
• 32:05
  So my my necks literally start off like this.
• 32:11
  That would be so lost I wouldn't even know where to.
• 32:13
  Start. Yeah, that's a good.
• 32:14
  It's going to be a guitar net, but that's.
• 32:17
  Yeah. So everything is 100% from
• 32:22
  scratch, you know, and that's the only thing I can figure that
• 32:28
  when somebody of Peter's caliber gets it in their hands and Peter
• 32:32
  even commented on the net a couple.
• 32:34
  Times that's what I wanted to hear you say, because that's the
• 32:36
  only thing that's going to sway me too, because that's the magic
• 32:40
  of this Charvel, right? I know as a builder you're going
• 32:44
  to pick the right piece of wood. That's the other thing Chris
• 32:47
  getting a custom built guitar is he goes out and he looks at
• 32:51
  every piece of wood until he sees the one that he wants.
• 32:55
  He knows how that piece of wood's going to sound after he
• 32:58
  bouncing. Out into the car shape, right,
• 33:00
  right. So.
• 33:00
  So, so, so just so I can put in people's perspectives.
• 33:03
  Kind of like Roy Hobbs when his dad cut down the oak tree and
• 33:06
  then he found the piece of oak to make the bat.
• 33:09
  Yes, right. Absolutely.
• 33:10
  Right, so that was that was Roy Hobbs bat that that he used and
• 33:14
  light. I think he called it lightning
• 33:15
  boy or something right until that until he hit that home run
• 33:18
  and it broke and all chaos ensued.
• 33:20
  That's the Robert Redford. Movie same.
• 33:22
  Yes. Good job, Yeah.
• 33:25
  The natural. I was waiting.
• 33:26
  I was. Waiting I I speak in television
• 33:29
  movie euphemisms sometimes and it takes people a minute.
• 33:33
  We talked about the Gallagher family from Chicago one time and
• 33:35
  the guest was like. No, he you got me for a minute
• 33:38
  on that. Yeah, I followed the story all
• 33:41
  the way down. But that's but that's why I
• 33:43
  mean, that's a great example though, because there is a wood
• 33:45
  of the baseball bat was was the the best piece of wood he could
• 33:49
  find for that bat to sustain him, you know, in the movie
• 33:51
  anyway. So that's bad.
• 33:53
  That's that's pretty legit dude. That you that you I can see now
• 33:56
  that's an that's an that would be an appeal.
• 33:58
  Like I had a microphone stand that I had a drummer make in my
• 34:01
  he's my second drummer ever. And it it kind of, it's hard to
• 34:05
  explain because it broke, but. The bottom.
• 34:07
  Of it, the bottom of it were Raven's claws.
• 34:09
  He drew me a tattoo, but it's kind of hard to see it now, but
• 34:12
  my arm was put, he put my arm in resin, so it went like this, OK.
• 34:17
  And you could see as I would, as the mic stand, this comes up and
• 34:22
  I had the microphone held in that hand right there on stage.
• 34:25
  You could see the veins and the muscle going up to the
• 34:29
  microphone. Oh.
• 34:30
  Yeah. Yeah, it was.
• 34:31
  And it was before anybody had mic stands.
• 34:33
  He did it. He was an art student ASU, Neil
• 34:36
  Sands. Thank you, Neil, art student
• 34:38
  ASU. And he had a project he had to
• 34:40
  do that was not using the typical type stuff.
• 34:45
  So he's like, hey, dude, can I let's make you a mic stand?
• 34:47
  Because I just released this thing called Welcome to My Mind.
• 34:50
  And he really dug the stuff that was in there.
• 34:52
  And so the bottom of it were Raven's claws going up to this
• 34:55
  weird twisted knot. This thing weighed like 30 lbs.
• 34:58
  Oh wow. And then my, my arm picked it up
• 35:01
  on the top and like, legit, I would stand on stage like this
• 35:05
  holding my own hand with the microphone.
• 35:08
  My foot would fit underneath the raven's claws so I could rock
• 35:10
  it, you know? Either way, it was, it was
• 35:13
  fucking. It was amazing.
• 35:14
  That's insane. Yeah, it was so.
• 35:16
  Cool. Shit on it broke it anyway, but
• 35:21
  yeah, so that so but see that appealed to me because it was
• 35:24
  cool and then that was a a conversation piece when we
• 35:28
  played out. So if if that's one of the
• 35:30
  allure that people have is because you hand make this shit
• 35:32
  hand carve it. Oh for sure.
• 35:34
  That's dude, that's badass and that's.
• 35:36
  Like going full circle back to, you know, after Chris and I met
• 35:40
  at the candle box show, we went on to have some old fuck moments
• 35:44
  where we opened up for the Marshall Tucker Band.
• 35:47
  We had, I don't know, I don't even know how many times we
• 35:51
  opened up for sacred, right? They loved us.
• 35:52
  I. Don't.
• 35:53
  I don't know. Their rhythm guitar player ran
• 35:55
  sound for us at the Mason jar in Phoenix, which was super cool.
• 36:00
  So, you know, like these moments led to more moments that Chris
• 36:05
  and I were able to, you know, we opened up for Pat Travers 7
• 36:08
  Dust, Tony McAlpine enough's enough belly guns just.
• 36:17
  Yeah, because we, we, we hit the same time.
• 36:21
  Within two years of us doing our thing, Creed took off.
• 36:24
  So we were in the Tempe sound of the time when when I used to say
• 36:28
  it on stage, if you came for Tempe Jingle Jingle sound,
• 36:30
  you're in the wrong place. We were just playing straight
• 36:33
  ahead Rock'n'roll again like Candy Box was.
• 36:36
  And we could play, yeah, and we could play with anybody.
• 36:38
  It didn't matter. We got booked.
• 36:40
  I shaved my head and they booked us for a Skinhead show and you
• 36:45
  know, it worked it. Worked.
• 36:48
  But it was so far from our ideology.
• 36:51
  But it's the music, right? Yeah.
• 36:54
  So that's the thing. It doesn't matter who is up and
• 36:57
  down the radio dial. We could play with them because
• 37:00
  our music was so diverse and unique and original.
• 37:03
  The only cover we did, we did 2 Roadhouse Blues and Mike did
• 37:06
  Catch Scratch Fever. Aside from that, it was all
• 37:09
  original. Right, right.
• 37:11
  So that was a cool thing about it, you know, And we knew how to
• 37:13
  work the crowd. And, you know, we came out and
• 37:15
  played three songs without me saying a word to the crowd.
• 37:17
  And afterwards, just kind of like, it's like, hey, hey, you
• 37:22
  know, how's everybody doing tonight?
• 37:23
  And they're just like, what the fuck is this?
• 37:25
  Right, right. You didn't expect it when you
• 37:28
  had the refreshments in the gym Blossoms coming out of Arizona.
• 37:31
  You weren't expecting a band like us to step up on stage.
• 37:34
  I just. Thought people were ready for
• 37:36
  rock'n'roll again. And after the success of
• 37:38
  Candlebox and after the success of Creed, because I don't,
• 37:42
  Candlebox got lumped into Seattle because that's where
• 37:44
  they were from at the right, right, right, true, true.
• 37:47
  They were just a straight ahead rock'n'roll band.
• 37:49
  When you hear Arrow, it beats you over the head like we
• 37:52
  intended for our opening song to do.
• 37:54
  When you hear Freeman, that was our intention was just a beat
• 37:57
  you over the head for what, 3 minutes, right?
• 38:00
  Right. Two minutes and 58 seconds,
• 38:02
  right? Like, let's just kick their ass
• 38:04
  for three. But they, but they were so much
• 38:06
  different at the time than everything else that was coming
• 38:09
  out of Seattle. Yeah, it was.
• 38:12
  It was apples and oranges, you know.
• 38:14
  Absolutely, but they were able to pull that perfection off
• 38:18
  live. That's what blew me away when I
• 38:21
  went and saw him at my fucking jaw was on the ground.
• 38:23
  I'm like, there was no, I'm you're waiting for the
• 38:26
  imperfections. That's what I always say about
• 38:28
  ACDC. If you've never seen them, I
• 38:30
  always say for two straight hours or 2 1/2 hours, if that
• 38:33
  band made a mistake, I never heard it.
• 38:34
  Right, right, right. That was candle box for me at
• 38:38
  that show that Chris and I went and then that.
• 38:39
  And that's how they are still today.
• 38:41
  It's unreal. They're so tight.
• 38:44
  Yeah, you don't lose that for sure.
• 38:46
  Yeah. Yeah, well, we have to still
• 38:54
  talk. There's you guys have more
• 38:55
  things to discuss. Oh, for sure.
• 38:56
  No minutes. I don't.
• 38:58
  Well, there's a law, so. OK, so.
• 39:00
  So we got Peter Clit from from from Peter Clatt.
• 39:03
  Sorry. Yeah, we got to talk about.
• 39:04
  Everett, I'm just sure I said Clint on the show.
• 39:07
  Clint Clitoris. No.
• 39:08
  Peter Clatt. OK.
• 39:09
  And then we have Davey from Everclear.
• 39:11
  Yeah. Who else?
• 39:12
  Who else? Who else?
• 39:13
  That we that the world does know that that you want to share with
• 39:16
  us that. You're building for, I mean that
• 39:19
  that's the three big ones would be Peter and then Davey and then
• 39:23
  Art from Everclear and that. OK.
• 39:26
  Getting to getting to build one for Davey was fucking huge to
• 39:30
  me. You know, I was like, this guy,
• 39:32
  sure. He's been, he's been playing
• 39:33
  with Everclear for 20 years, you know, Yeah, like, holy shit.
• 39:37
  And the dude is yeah. One, just such a amazing human
• 39:42
  being, such a just down to earth, such a great guy, you
• 39:47
  know, and two, he's such a goddamn talented guitarist.
• 39:50
  It's. Absolutely.
• 39:52
  Insane but for me and I, I don't want to downplay the excitement
• 40:01
  of building 1 for Davey, but I knew in getting to go.
• 40:07
  Delivered because I drove to Denver to deliver that one to
• 40:09
  him and getting to do that and meet him, I was going to get to
• 40:13
  meet Art also, Right, Right. So a couple times during Davey
• 40:18
  and I's conversation, you know, like, hey, your guitar is almost
• 40:21
  done, you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 40:25
  And he's like, yeah, Art is really excited to see some
• 40:27
  pictures of it. He might want 1, you know, and
• 40:31
  I'm like, fuck yeah, you know. And so he, you know, he's like,
• 40:38
  he, he wants to wait until, you know, you get here and he gets
• 40:42
  it in his hands, gets to see it, gets to play it and feel it, you
• 40:45
  know, before, before he commits to anything.
• 40:48
  Sure. So we arrive at that venue in
• 40:50
  Denver. Do we go downstairs, like into
• 40:55
  the dressing room first? They were doing sound check
• 40:57
  upstairs or starting sound check?
• 40:59
  They're setting the levels on the drums and David gets the
• 41:02
  guitar out and he plays it unplugged for just a minute and
• 41:06
  it's just like, I've got to get this upstairs and plug it in,
• 41:10
  you know? You know right away as a guitar
• 41:12
  player, you know for sure. I'm like, fuck yeah, I know.
• 41:15
  And that's he even said that he's like, as soon as I played
• 41:18
  it unplugged, it was so snappy and it sounded so just exactly
• 41:23
  how I wanted it. I knew I had plugged in and hear
• 41:25
  it, you know? Not to interrupt your story, but
• 41:27
  real quick, the guy that taught me to pick out guitars, he
• 41:30
  actually taught me to put my ear up to the guitar so I could hear
• 41:34
  how the wood was sustaining. Right, right, right.
• 41:37
  You know, he's like, you're going to hear what kind of
• 41:39
  sustain you're going to get out of that wood because all the
• 41:42
  electronics is doing is amplifying the actual sound
• 41:45
  you're hearing through that grain of the wood.
• 41:47
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 41:48
  That was the best lesson I ever learned.
• 41:50
  People see me do that at a guitar shop and they think I'm
• 41:52
  fucking crazy. But right, right, it works.
• 41:54
  But it makes sense, you know? Yeah, I saw one of the greatest
• 41:57
  guitar players. Rolling Stone dubbed him as one
• 42:00
  of the top 10 or top 25 most influential guitar players of
• 42:04
  all time. Ted Turner from Wishbone Ash.
• 42:06
  Right. I sold him a guitar at Guitar
• 42:09
  Center in Phoenix and I saw him do that with the guitar that he
• 42:12
  ended up buying. I was like right on.
• 42:13
  Nice, nice. You know you get vindicated when
• 42:17
  all those years you think you're doing something special that
• 42:20
  nobody else knows, right? And you see somebody else doing
• 42:22
  it. Yep.
• 42:23
  Yep. I'm like, hey, I do that too.
• 42:25
  And he's like, you got to man, how are you going to know if
• 42:27
  it's going to sustain or not if you don't listen to the grain of
• 42:29
  the wood number? That's what the guy that showed
• 42:31
  me. I love those moments.
• 42:35
  Absolutely. I do know what I'm talking
• 42:37
  about. Right.
• 42:39
  So, yeah, So Davey then took the guitar up on the stage, plugs it
• 42:44
  into his rig and sitting there just fucking murdering this
• 42:48
  thing, you know, just playing the shit out of it.
• 42:51
  And I'll be again. I had a Peter Cleck flashback.
• 42:54
  I'm just like, Oh, my fucking God, you know, on the stage,
• 42:58
  plugged into his rig in this beautiful auditorium, you know,
• 43:02
  wailing on this thing sounds fucking incredible.
• 43:07
  And then Art comes out walking on the stage and like, hey,
• 43:11
  introduces himself to me. You know, it was funny.
• 43:13
  I'm standing there watching Davey play, and I just feel a
• 43:16
  hand on my shoulder and turn around and it's Art standing
• 43:19
  there. And he's like, hey, I'm part.
• 43:21
  And I was like, holy shit, yes, you are, you know?
• 43:26
  And he's like, he's like, you built that.
• 43:27
  I was like, I'm like, yeah. And he's like, I want to play
• 43:30
  it, you know? He's like, Davey, bring that
• 43:32
  here. Let me play it.
• 43:33
  So Art takes the guitar, puts it on, starts playing on it and he
• 43:38
  plays that guitar for about 10 or 15 seconds and stop and
• 43:43
  looked at me and he goes, I want 1.
• 43:46
  And I was I was just like, holy shit, you know, Oh my God.
• 43:51
  So that that was just a fucking amazing experience and getting
• 43:56
  to hang out with those guys and talk guitars, talk music and
• 44:03
  their art. Art's the same way.
• 44:05
  Just such down to earth normal, just a.
• 44:09
  Well, you you tell either one of those guys, if they want to come
• 44:12
  on here and talk guitars, they're more than welcome.
• 44:14
  To right. Right.
• 44:16
  Anybody. Clear for Yeah, Yeah, they were
• 44:18
  another band that spoke to me right away and where I'll give
• 44:22
  them a compliment is it was the same way as Candle Box.
• 44:25
  It was just so different and catchy at the time, right,
• 44:28
  right. Sometimes catchy is good,
• 44:30
  Sometimes catchy is it's pop music.
• 44:33
  And I've you know, we have dubbed pop music evil for a
• 44:37
  reason in the rock world, right? Right.
• 44:40
  Some of it, and I'm not saying their stuff is pop music, but
• 44:44
  even in that world, some of it's good.
• 44:47
  Pop rock's fine. Candy ass Pop Rock's not fine.
• 44:49
  Right, right. And Everclear had that edge to
• 44:52
  them. The guys that loved heavy metal
• 44:55
  even liked Everclear. Absolutely.
• 44:58
  It was so catchy, you had to listen to it.
• 44:59
  Somebody's behind you. I have a job to do on this
• 45:04
  podcast, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm not going to share my
• 45:07
  duties. So yeah, they're absolutely more
• 45:12
  than welcome to come on here and talk guitars, like Chris said.
• 45:15
  And any musician, you know, even famous or not famous, welcome to
• 45:19
  come on here and talk about why they love your particular
• 45:22
  guitar. Because I'm as curious as
• 45:24
  anybody because I just had this conversation with my mom not
• 45:28
  that long ago. I'm still 13 years old inside my
• 45:31
  brain, right, right. Like, I love to play just we're
• 45:35
  boys. That actually that that actually
• 45:37
  would be really cool if we get Peter or Davion to actually talk
• 45:40
  about you, Mike the guitar maker.
• 45:43
  Oh, that would I. Would I would get so nervous
• 45:44
  and, and, and find and find out? No, but really to find out.
• 45:48
  Here's the thing. Here's the thing, it would it
• 45:50
  would help you understand the the allure of your of what you
• 45:54
  built, right? Sure.
• 45:55
  Which in doing so, in doing so, because Mike and I are all about
• 45:59
  helping get our guests into the forefront, out into the world,
• 46:03
  right? Like, this is not an interview,
• 46:05
  it's a conversation. I'm, you're fully aware of that,
• 46:07
  right? Interviews are boring yourself.
• 46:09
  Because I was on radio and that was the one thing I hate.
• 46:11
  It's like, oh, you know, just a stupid straight line.
• 46:14
  No, screw that, man. You learn so much more just like
• 46:17
  this. The, the organic, real and raw
• 46:20
  relevant conversation about why you're here.
• 46:22
  You're here because #1 Mike wanted you to come on the show
• 46:26
  and I tracked you down and you're gracious enough to say
• 46:28
  yes. So thank you.
• 46:29
  And you build custom. Guitars and you put custom
• 46:32
  guitars in the hands of three guitar players who have toured
• 46:35
  the world I don't know how many times.
• 46:37
  Platinum, right? So right.
• 46:39
  So it'd be right. So it'd be fantastic to have
• 46:42
  them on and you can come with them because we can put poor
• 46:46
  people on this thing and, and find out from Peter and Davey
• 46:49
  and Art. What was it about your
• 46:51
  instrument that they were so drawn to that they had to have
• 46:55
  one, right, Let alone have another one?
• 46:57
  Because you know that doors, you know that doors going to open up
• 47:00
  every time you when you go drop off the next guitar and the next
• 47:02
  guitar, people are going to comment like, and all of a
• 47:05
  sudden you, you know, Monkey House Guitars is going to be a
• 47:08
  household name in the rock'n'roll world.
• 47:09
  Because that's why you're here, right?
• 47:12
  We're going to give you like 20 clips that you can share your
• 47:16
  disposal as well. So you know, we're going to do.
• 47:18
  Before you go pump and before you go public, let us know so we
• 47:21
  can hop on the gravy train. That that would be great.
• 47:25
  That would be right. You know, you got to think big,
• 47:28
  man. Yeah, so.
• 47:30
  Let me ask you this. Yeah, we never then Chris and I
• 47:34
  are terrible about this. And because he let me lead the
• 47:38
  show and I started off by just talking to like, geeking out
• 47:42
  about guitars. What made you want to build
• 47:45
  guitars? And what?
• 47:46
  Obviously because you were a player, right?
• 47:48
  And when did you start doing it? All right, so The funny thing
• 47:54
  here, I think probably about a month ago I had an elementary
• 47:59
  school teacher contact me from a school that's a couple miles
• 48:03
  from here. And they're in Kansas, right?
• 48:07
  I'm sorry, we're in Kansas. Yep.
• 48:08
  You're in Kansas, Yeah. We're in Kansas, Yep.
• 48:10
  And her students, the 5th grade class is getting ready next
• 48:16
  month. I think they're having their
• 48:18
  music program. So the art teacher and the music
• 48:21
  teacher are coming together. And these kids are building
• 48:25
  cardboard guitars for their music show.
• 48:28
  Yeah. So.
• 48:29
  So it's incorporating the art class into the music program,
• 48:33
  you know, which I think is beautiful, You know, I love.
• 48:37
  It that they have both. Yes, yeah, exactly.
• 48:40
  So she reaches out to me and it's like, hey, explains what
• 48:44
  they're doing. Would you be willing to come to
• 48:47
  our school and talk to the the the entire 5th grade class, like
• 48:52
  75 kids about what you do about building guitars and blah, blah,
• 48:57
  blah, so they can get some inspiration and ideas for their
• 49:01
  project they're doing, You know, I love it.
• 49:03
  I was like, yeah, absolutely. That would be fun to do.
• 49:06
  I was more nervous going to talk to these kids than I was going
• 49:10
  to meet a rock star, you know? Oh.
• 49:12
  For sure I would be too. Yeah, the, the week, the weekend
• 49:17
  before doing that, I was in Denver delivering a guitar to
• 49:21
  Everclear. And I was more nervous that
• 49:24
  weekend talking to these fifth grade kids, you know, but so
• 49:29
  leading up to that, I'm sitting there thinking, OK, what in the
• 49:33
  hell am I going to talk to these kids about?
• 49:34
  That's going to keep them interested, you know, to get
• 49:37
  them engaged in the conversation, you know, And so I
• 49:41
  really started thinking about when did I start building the
• 49:44
  guitar? And the first time I attempted
• 49:48
  building a guitar, I was about that age, like 4th, 5th grade.
• 49:53
  And it was, it was out of cardboard and plexiglass and
• 49:58
  fishing line, you know, and put the whole goddamn thing together
• 50:03
  and it would make noise. It sounded like shit.
• 50:07
  But I built it and it, it was, it resembled a guitar, you know?
• 50:11
  But I built. It right.
• 50:13
  And that's that's where the whole thing started, you know,
• 50:19
  and then it flashed forward several years in high school and
• 50:23
  woodshop. We had our like our end of the
• 50:27
  year project. You got one free project.
• 50:29
  You could build whatever you wanted.
• 50:31
  You had the whole wood shop at your disposal to build this one
• 50:34
  project. And I want to.
• 50:35
  Build a guitar. Just so people understand wood
• 50:38
  shop, it was a class in junior high and then in high school we
• 50:41
  actually learned how to use your hands and craft things with
• 50:44
  power to a metal shop and auto shop.
• 50:46
  We don't have those anymore because the for whatever reason,
• 50:51
  you have to go to a a what is a vocational school for that
• 50:54
  stuff? Which was stupid.
• 50:55
  We actually have one of those in our town, so we're fortunate.
• 50:58
  Yeah, yeah. So there was a time when you're
• 51:01
  required curriculum included wood shop, metal shop and auto
• 51:04
  shop. Right and Joe can music and art.
• 51:06
  Yeah, and music and art. I'm surprised.
• 51:08
  I was surprised when he said that because a lot of schools
• 51:10
  have stripped that out of their programs, right?
• 51:13
  All right. And I think that's sad, you
• 51:15
  know? Agreed 100% Man 100%.
• 51:19
  But yeah, so that was that was my I want to build a guitar for
• 51:22
  this project. My stop teacher.
• 51:27
  He was like 8590 years old, have had like 3 fingers, you know,
• 51:33
  and and he he's like, I don't know shit about building a
• 51:37
  guitar. You're on your own.
• 51:38
  I'm no help to you, you know, and I'm like back then there's
• 51:44
  there's. There's no Internet.
• 51:48
  No Internet, no YouTube, no you know nothing that I can just
• 51:53
  look up and absorb information and figure it out.
• 51:56
  How old are you like? It it was a disaster and.
• 52:00
  How old are you, Mike? I I actually I turned 50 here in
• 52:03
  a couple days. OK, we're all in the same
• 52:05
  wheelhouse within four years of each.
• 52:06
  Yeah. Yeah, so, so that project never
• 52:10
  got anywhere near completion. And that always ever since then
• 52:16
  in the back of my mind bugged the shit out of me that I never
• 52:20
  did see that through, you know, And so not even 10 years ago,
• 52:28
  probably six years ago, I want to, I want to see, you know, if
• 52:32
  I can do this, you know. And so my daughter and I for
• 52:38
  like just a daddy daughter project, we had bought a kick
• 52:43
  guitar. You know, I was like, we're
• 52:44
  going to build a guitar and a kick guitar is kind of just like
• 52:48
  a Lego set, you know, you just, it's all already done.
• 52:51
  You paint it, finish it and, and assemble it and it's done.
• 52:55
  There's, it took us like 2 weeks, you know, and I was like,
• 52:58
  that was kind of really anticlimactic, you know, is
• 53:04
  that. Your daughter.
• 53:06
  That's my granddaughter and me. OK.
• 53:08
  Right on. That's you.
• 53:10
  That that's me. Right on.
• 53:13
  But he's having a bad hair day. Yeah.
• 53:17
  I didn't shave that day, but so we we did that kid guitar and I
• 53:23
  was just like, that wasn't even a challenge.
• 53:25
  That was way too fucking easy. One from scratch, the whole
• 53:32
  thing. What would it take to do it from
• 53:34
  scratch? So really just started diving
• 53:36
  into it, absorbing all the information that I could.
• 53:41
  Start investing in tools one at a time here and there and get to
• 53:45
  the point where like, all right, I'm ready to cut some wood and
• 53:48
  try this and built my first guitar from scratch.
• 53:53
  And it happened way too easily. Like it just said, it went
• 53:59
  together and in the over the course of like a month and a
• 54:01
  half, two months, it was done, you know, and that that's
• 54:05
  building a neck from scratch and everything.
• 54:06
  It just it came together and plugged it in and it played and
• 54:10
  it worked and I was like well fuck, that wasn't too hard
• 54:13
  challenge to see if I. Could don't tell people that.
• 54:16
  Don't act like it was too. It was super hard.
• 54:18
  It was the hardest thing you've ever done in your life.
• 54:22
  Everyone I've built since then has been hardest fuck there.
• 54:25
  You go. Do you think that building that
• 54:28
  kick guitar gave you like a leg up?
• 54:31
  Did that help at all or you would have been able to do the
• 54:33
  first one the same way you did it?
• 54:36
  Without helping guitar that I don't know about you, but every
• 54:40
  guitar that I've owned, I've taken them apart.
• 54:44
  You know, these swap out pickups, do this, do that, and
• 54:47
  then reassemble it, put it back together and you know I've.
• 54:50
  Always found somebody that was smarter than me for real.
• 54:54
  I just I. Recommend somebody else.
• 54:57
  Fixes them if I if I buy something I need to figure out
• 55:00
  how it works so I'll take it completely apart and learn it
• 55:04
  and then put it back together. You know and I was always that
• 55:06
  way with my guitars too. So I don't, I don't feel like
• 55:10
  the kit guitar really did anything for me other than kind
• 55:15
  of ignite the, the, the desire to do more than just build a
• 55:21
  kit, you know? Well, you actually answered my
• 55:23
  question without knowing it. It was the fact that you had
• 55:28
  taken them apart and putting them back together, all the ones
• 55:30
  that you had bought. You knew how the electronics
• 55:33
  looked, you knew how the pickups went in there, and you knew what
• 55:36
  you would do differently if you were, if you had, you know the
• 55:40
  blueprint to do it yourself. Now I understand it's because
• 55:43
  you spent time taking them apart and seeing how they worked.
• 55:47
  I just, I make that joke all the time, but it's not a joke.
• 55:51
  Don't give me your collector's guitar because you know I'm a
• 55:54
  player. I'm not a collector.
• 55:55
  I'm going to write the fucking thing.
• 55:56
  Right, right, and. Then I mean that in a good, I
• 55:58
  mean that in a good way. I'm going to play it and it's
• 56:00
  going to get a, it's going to get abused.
• 56:02
  Right. And that, that's, I, I feel that
• 56:04
  way about every guitar that I build.
• 56:08
  When, when the the new owner gets it, I don't want it to be
• 56:13
  hung on the wall and displayed. It's not a not a part piece, you
• 56:16
  know, and I, I've literally, I've told people that I want you
• 56:19
  to beat the shit out of this guitar.
• 56:21
  I want you to bring the fuck out of this thing.
• 56:23
  That means a lot to hear. Yeah, you know that.
• 56:26
  Like that's what it's made for, is to have the shit played out
• 56:30
  of it, you know? Well, yeah, it's like Hetfield
• 56:33
  still plays his original. What?
• 56:35
  I don't remember what it was. Mike, you'll know.
• 56:37
  It's an Epiphone, yeah, that that Flying V that he has that's
• 56:41
  been around with him since what, 198079 or whatever, right?
• 56:45
  It's literally like a $300 guitar that he plays Seek and
• 56:48
  Destroy on or whatever now. Right.
• 56:51
  But think about that. That guitar has been around the
• 56:53
  world. Probably, probably right, 4050.
• 56:56
  Yeah, it's a $300 guitar that you couldn't put a price tag on
• 56:59
  today. Correct.
• 57:00
  No, right? No, but no, not at all.
• 57:03
  But that's the point of it. You're not.
• 57:04
  You're building a you're building an instrument to be
• 57:06
  played. You're going to have you have
• 57:08
  people that collect shit hanging on their walls, right?
• 57:10
  Like I'm sure somebody owns Jimi Hendrix guitar and it's behind
• 57:13
  the case on his wall, but. Which is so sad.
• 57:15
  Right, but. You know, but for the most part,
• 57:18
  you're building something that that creates life and the music
• 57:22
  world and it, you know, and music is life, man.
• 57:25
  So that's cool, dude. Yeah, that was a brilliant
• 57:29
  statement right there. I love.
• 57:30
  That oh oh, you're welcome. Pretty gross.
• 57:33
  What did I say? Music is life.
• 57:36
  It is. Music is life, man.
• 57:37
  Music is life. It is, you know, you can't.
• 57:41
  I mean, think about, we've talked about it before.
• 57:42
  Can you imagine a world without music?
• 57:44
  We have like, had that debate. I don't, I don't know.
• 57:47
  When Ozzy no, like when Ozzy died, like I made the comment,
• 57:51
  Mike and I talked about it because on the next show and
• 57:53
  it's when he died the the world got quieter and it's and it's
• 57:56
  not like his music doesn't live on.
• 57:58
  It does. It's not like his legacy isn't
• 58:00
  what it is, but. But there's never going to be
• 58:02
  more, because right? Right, right.
• 58:05
  I'm sure there is. I'm sure he has all kinds of
• 58:07
  stuff stored away, right. Especially with the sun.
• 58:09
  Sun, I'm sure we're going to hear stuff because I'm sure,
• 58:11
  Yeah, you know. No, it's not.
• 58:13
  It's not because you don't have the sound bites.
• 58:15
  You don't have, you don't have, you just don't have Aussie.
• 58:18
  It's different. It's different when you lose
• 58:20
  somebody to that magnitude. It's kind of like it's just, you
• 58:23
  know, when Elvis died, it the world got quiet because, you
• 58:26
  know, back then there was no Internet, but Elvis reached the
• 58:28
  entire world. And it's like, well, now what?
• 58:30
  You know, that's why people grieve so hard when Ozzy died,
• 58:33
  because it's. Right.
• 58:34
  Or John Lennon, you know. Right.
• 58:36
  You, just, you, just you silence somebody.
• 58:38
  That was such a voice on so many levels and Ozzy carried through
• 58:43
  so many genres and and it didn't matter if you liked Sabbath or
• 58:47
  or his music alone. You liked him because of the
• 58:49
  Osbournes. If you didn't like because of
• 58:50
  the Osbournes, you like because you heard the stories about the
• 58:52
  bats and the doves and pissing on the Alamo.
• 58:54
  There's so many different things to his character and the dynamic
• 58:58
  human that he was that you just you loved or hate him.
• 59:00
  But I think more people loved him than hated him because all
• 59:04
  he wanted the other day was just to jam and just and and be a
• 59:08
  loving human and share with. Right.
• 59:10
  And for guys like Mike and I, he gave us some of the greatest
• 59:13
  guitar players that ever graced the instrument that, you know,
• 59:17
  made us ambitious enough to go out and try and be that good as
• 59:20
  as well, you know? Right.
• 59:22
  Well, think about the guitar players he gave to us.
• 59:24
  Try to try to think of what the what the music world would be
• 59:28
  today had he not done anything he did, you know?
• 59:32
  There wouldn't be. There would be no Metallica.
• 59:35
  No, there would be No Yeah, there'd be so.
• 59:36
  Because he gave them their first big start.
• 59:40
  Yep. So who's the who's the Holy
• 59:43
  Grail? If who, who's the one phone call
• 59:46
  you're waiting for to say, hey, Mike, I want you to build me a
• 59:48
  guitar? So that's that's a good
• 59:51
  question. It is, I love it.
• 59:54
  A lot. And I do have an answer a lot.
• 59:58
  A lot of the problem with that is most Holy Grail guitarists
• 1:00:04
  are endorsed, you know, and part of their endorsement deal.
• 1:00:09
  And I've talked to several, you know, they're like, I would love
• 1:00:11
  to have you build me one, but I can't accept the guitar from
• 1:00:15
  you. I can't have pictures of me
• 1:00:17
  holding your guitar because I'll lose my endorsement deal, you
• 1:00:21
  know? The one Holy Grail one that as
• 1:00:25
  far as I know isn't endorsed is Pete Loeffler from Chevelle.
• 1:00:31
  I would love to get in contact with him somehow and build a
• 1:00:38
  guitar for him. Well, you're gonna get a little
• 1:00:41
  clip of this show that hopefully this is part of those clips and
• 1:00:44
  you can just put it on this page.
• 1:00:46
  Right, right. And you just blew me away, man.
• 1:00:51
  That's such an interesting choice because my mind went
• 1:00:53
  right to his tone and there's another tone that I really
• 1:00:56
  admire and love, right? And and the things I love about
• 1:00:59
  him. So there's actually, my answer
• 1:01:02
  wouldn't be just him. There's three of them.
• 1:01:05
  OK, He's 1. And so Pete loves playing Pete
• 1:01:10
  Loeffler. He has a thing for baritone
• 1:01:14
  scale guitars and and odd, odd scale guitars and shit.
• 1:01:18
  He has, I've seen pictures of him now there's some baritone
• 1:01:23
  scale Fender that he picked up that he's been playing lately.
• 1:01:26
  OK, so I, I love players that are like that, that they want
• 1:01:32
  oddball shit, you know? Because now it's a challenge for
• 1:01:37
  you, right? Right, right.
• 1:01:39
  It's something different. It's not, well, I've got
• 1:01:41
  templates sitting right here for that.
• 1:01:43
  I could crank out another telly in it.
• 1:01:44
  And you know, it's like a challenge.
• 1:01:47
  It's something it takes a lot more focus on work going into
• 1:01:52
  it. But what I love to hear about
• 1:01:54
  that from you, Mike, is that means that the guitars that you
• 1:01:58
  build, that you would consider average guitars are so far above
• 1:02:01
  and beyond anything that you could go buy at the store.
• 1:02:03
  That's what I want people to understand that listening to
• 1:02:06
  this, if you're a young guitar player out there, the reason
• 1:02:09
  that I'm so excited as a 40 year veteran of playing the
• 1:02:13
  instrument to talk to this man is I know the love and care that
• 1:02:18
  goes into picking the wood in the necks.
• 1:02:20
  And like you said, making a neck is a tedious process.
• 1:02:24
  You can't. Rush it and it it just, I love
• 1:02:28
  to hear your passion for the same passion I have for playing
• 1:02:32
  the instrument when I hear it the way it's intended through a
• 1:02:35
  great amplifier. And you know what I'm saying?
• 1:02:38
  Well, and that, that's a big part of the, that it's a big
• 1:02:42
  part of the appeal. And the fun of it to me is
• 1:02:46
  you're building custom shit. It's it's not I want you to
• 1:02:50
  build me this exact guitar that I saw hanging on the wall at
• 1:02:53
  Guitar Center. You know, it's I want this
• 1:02:57
  guitar, but I want it to have this on it.
• 1:03:00
  But they don't make that. I want, you know, I want this
• 1:03:02
  with a Floyd on it, but they don't make that.
• 1:03:05
  It doesn't exist in the wild. And I want one.
• 1:03:09
  I really want one with my my name engraved on the fret board.
• 1:03:13
  But that, you know, go into a custom shop that's a it's a
• 1:03:16
  three-year wait list and you know, I'll never have that.
• 1:03:21
  You know, I'm like, well, fuck, I can do that for you.
• 1:03:23
  I can, I can literally you can piece meal, you know, pick and
• 1:03:28
  choose different aspects of guitars that you love and cram
• 1:03:32
  them all into one and build that, you know, and that's the
• 1:03:35
  part that I love about doing the custom shit.
• 1:03:39
  Is and that's why I'm excited to talk to you.
• 1:03:41
  You know, I want I definitely and I'll tell you why I want you
• 1:03:44
  to build me a guitar because we had our original bass player on
• 1:03:47
  a on the podcast. What about a month ago, Chris?
• 1:03:51
  Maybe. Maybe longer than that.
• 1:03:52
  Time flies, man. Yeah, it might have been back in
• 1:03:54
  all hey. William.
• 1:03:55
  Hey, William Richard Carter. William, they put us on 12 hour
• 1:03:58
  days. I'll get in touch soon.
• 1:04:00
  That's the reason you haven't heard from me.
• 1:04:03
  That was awesome. The reason that I want you to
• 1:04:05
  build me a guitar is something caught my ear when we were
• 1:04:08
  talking to him. He just had a bass made for him
• 1:04:11
  recently, and he said if you're ever afforded the opportunity,
• 1:04:15
  take it, because I can't express enough how different this
• 1:04:19
  instrument is versus anything I've ever played.
• 1:04:22
  And I could see it in his eyes, and I could hear it in his
• 1:04:24
  voice. Right, right, right you.
• 1:04:26
  Sound like a little like you said with Peter, He's like a
• 1:04:29
  little kid at Christmas. When he heard that played
• 1:04:31
  through his rig, his eyes lit up and Davey's eyes lit up, Right.
• 1:04:34
  Like, these are players who respect their tone so much
• 1:04:38
  because people bought millions of their records, ladies and
• 1:04:41
  gentlemen, right? Millions.
• 1:04:43
  These are platinum selling artists.
• 1:04:44
  Their tone means something to them when they're delivering
• 1:04:47
  their message after you paid $300 to see them play, Right,
• 1:04:50
  Right. Whatever it costs nowadays, it's
• 1:04:52
  more expensive than it used to be.
• 1:04:54
  But yeah, it's just blows my mind that, you know, you at 40,
• 1:05:02
  you know, that's what makes the story even better.
• 1:05:03
  At 43 or 44 years old, you decided to start building
• 1:05:07
  guitars for. For the hell of it.
• 1:05:09
  Yeah. Can I do this?
• 1:05:11
  Do I have the talent and you whip one out?
• 1:05:13
  And yes, I not only have the talent, I think I'm pretty good
• 1:05:16
  at this. So I'm going to continue and I'm
• 1:05:18
  going to reach out to a couple people and.
• 1:05:21
  And it's just and here we are. And that's.
• 1:05:24
  I thought you were going to tell me you've been building guitars
• 1:05:26
  since that shop class. Right.
• 1:05:27
  I wish. I wish I would have.
• 1:05:30
  I wish I would have really stuck with it.
• 1:05:33
  If I could go back and talk to 18 year old me, I would not let
• 1:05:36
  myself have stopped at that point, you know, because I could
• 1:05:41
  have been doing this for 30 years, you know?
• 1:05:44
  But Yep. So let's give, let's give, let's
• 1:05:47
  give you a moment to give a shout out to your family and and
• 1:05:50
  you know all your friends and stuff in Kansas before you wrap
• 1:05:52
  this puppy up and you guys can talk off air about building like
• 1:05:55
  a guitar. Absolutely.
• 1:05:57
  OK. For well, that's you got.
• 1:06:00
  You got to say hey wife. You got to say hi to the wife
• 1:06:02
  and kids, man. Yeah, they're sitting right
• 1:06:04
  inside. He's a good Midwestern guy.
• 1:06:09
  I love his temper. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:11
  I'm in Illinois man. But no, that is that is 1 huge
• 1:06:14
  thing for me is 1. My wife is so incredibly
• 1:06:19
  supportive of me doing that. Good job.
• 1:06:21
  That's a good. Job.
• 1:06:22
  Wife. He's amazing.
• 1:06:26
  When I first started out doing this, we had just bought our
• 1:06:28
  house. I built a little 10 by 10 shed
• 1:06:31
  in the backyard and that's where I started at was in this little
• 1:06:35
  box and I was I was so crammed in there, you know, just it the
• 1:06:41
  shit that I was putting out, you wouldn't look at at that guitar
• 1:06:44
  and think that came out of there.
• 1:06:46
  You know, it just it was insane and it was it wasn't heated,
• 1:06:51
  wasn't cooled. It froze in the winter.
• 1:06:53
  You know, I had to have a propane heater going in there
• 1:06:56
  just to so I couldn't see my breath while I'm working, you
• 1:07:00
  know, any finishes, oils, anything paint.
• 1:07:04
  I had to bring all that in the house during the winter because
• 1:07:06
  it would freeze out there. Glue it just it sucked, but it
• 1:07:11
  got me going and I got to a point where so we have A2 car
• 1:07:16
  garage and I got to a point I was talking to a guy that I
• 1:07:20
  worked with one day. I was like, I really want to
• 1:07:23
  move my workshop into the garage, but I've got to talk my
• 1:07:27
  wife into it and I don't I don't know how to butter her up and
• 1:07:31
  like sweeten the deal to to get her to let me do that, you know,
• 1:07:36
  And so I came home that day and just So what would you think if
• 1:07:41
  I cleared out all the shit out of the garage and moved my shop
• 1:07:44
  in there instead? And she's like, cool, do it, you
• 1:07:46
  know? And I was like, no, sweet.
• 1:07:49
  So see why wives are cooler than we think when they are man, you
• 1:07:52
  just you just got to how long you been married.
• 1:07:55
  We've been married 10 years. Yeah.
• 1:07:58
  So that's the thing man, once you have time invested, it's.
• 1:08:00
  Just it's a. Conversation Nick and I've been
• 1:08:02
  together 31 so it's we finished the sentences and shit right
• 1:08:06
  right it's just that's the thing man I mean because because now
• 1:08:08
  it's just what what you do is good for you too not just for
• 1:08:12
  you and I think that's that's the cool thing about that good
• 1:08:15
  dynamic with the relationship is you can both realize that OK
• 1:08:19
  well Mike's doing over here building guitars is going to
• 1:08:21
  help us in the long run because the more you build the more
• 1:08:25
  successful you get the. You know more, and even at the
• 1:08:28
  beginning, just the fact that it made you happy, right?
• 1:08:30
  You were happier, Mike, because you were building guitars.
• 1:08:33
  Right. It either made me happier or it
• 1:08:36
  kept me out of her hair. One of the two, I'm just gonna
• 1:08:39
  say. That I'm just gonna say.
• 1:08:42
  That now I can watch whatever I want.
• 1:08:44
  Right, right, right. But, but no, she's, she's super
• 1:08:47
  supportive of it. You know, I'll, I'll be out here
• 1:08:50
  long hours, late at night, first thing in the morning on all
• 1:08:54
  weekend. I'm out here in my shop working.
• 1:08:57
  Yeah, but. And I've found I've got to force
• 1:09:00
  myself at times to step away and have family time, you know, cuz
• 1:09:06
  that's important and I don't want to miss out on that.
• 1:09:10
  So it's hard finding that that balance, you know you'll.
• 1:09:14
  Find it, you'll get it. You'll.
• 1:09:15
  Get time and family. Time, yeah, but you'll find it
• 1:09:18
  though, yeah. The more you do, the better
• 1:09:20
  you'll get out of dude, the more you'll understand.
• 1:09:22
  It so. That's good, the fact that you
• 1:09:23
  recognize that you're on the right path.
• 1:09:25
  So that's good, right? That's good.
• 1:09:28
  For sure. Yeah, OK, so so he's Mike for
• 1:09:31
  owner, founder of Monkey House Guitars.
• 1:09:33
  Got it right this time. You can find them on Facebook
• 1:09:35
  and Instagram. Just search Monkey.
• 1:09:37
  Just search Monkey Houses. Just search Monkey House
• 1:09:39
  Guitars. Right.
• 1:09:41
  Yep, Yep. OK, Yep, we close every show
• 1:09:44
  like this. If you're feeling sad, suicidal,
• 1:09:47
  depressed, don't do it. There's always somebody who
• 1:09:49
  loves you, who'll miss you. Don't leave a hole in somebody
• 1:09:51
  else's heart. Tomorrow's a better day because
• 1:09:53
  you're going to wake up in it. No bullshit.
• 1:09:56
  Text 988. If if you can't find somebody to
• 1:09:58
  talk to, text the 988. There's somebody there willing
• 1:10:01
  and ready to help you get through whatever you're
• 1:10:03
  struggling with. With that being said, I'm Chris,
• 1:10:06
  He's Mike and that's Mike. I'm, I'm, I'm sandwiched by
• 1:10:09
  Mike's, you know, it's it's, it's Mike squared.
• 1:10:13
  We appreciate you being on the show, dude.
• 1:10:15
  We definitely going to have you come back on after you make
• 1:10:17
  guitars for more and more people in the world.
• 1:10:19
  Yeah, I love it. If we if we can get Peter or
• 1:10:22
  Davey or art on you, come on with them, because then we can
• 1:10:24
  just. Yeah, let's make that.
• 1:10:25
  Happen. That would be love.
• 1:10:27
  Super fun to do, yeah? I love that idea.
• 1:10:29
  I, I might just, I might have to have a few drinks that day in
• 1:10:33
  order to do that. There's no problem with.
• 1:10:34
  That that's fine, you can, you can drink for me 'cause I don't
• 1:10:37
  drink. Love you brother.
• 1:10:39
  Love you too, man. See you guys.
• 1:10:40
  Great to meet you, Mike. Thanks for coming on.
• 1:10:42
  Thanks for. Your wife long your journey.
• 1:10:58
  Listen to the place where you will go.
• 1:11:06
  Be on the trail behind your eyes.
• 1:11:08
  Feel yourself and meet yourself. Take a moment.
• 1:11:15
  Look. Until.
• 1:11:16
  You see it, watch your battle and tear balls we hear.
• 1:11:22
  Watch your battle. Who is this baby?
• 1:12:37
  Come down here, we haven't found the
• 1:12:52
  salary in the exam from fighting.
• 1:12:57
  Wait for the dead when it's going around.
• 1:13:00
  Here you. Put in the wind.
• 1:13:02
  You ain't no quizzes. We don't pray and smile.
• 1:13:06
  And you should. You put it on the almighty day.
• 1:13:11
  You got a dream. Who in your life to keep our
• 1:13:16
  soul in every man. Take the trail behind your eyes.
• 1:13:24
  Feel the soul revolution now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:13:34
  yeah. Take
• 1:14:13
  your moment.