This is a make or break moment because I don't really know, I mean the same way that I don't
know what the guitar sounds like until I put the strings on or plug it in. I don't know if I'm
gonna find buyers for the instruments once they're on display. That's how I feel man. That's how I
fucking feel. Amen to that. This one I bought I think in 2010. Well neck is so nice. Cool man,
let's sit down and mess around with this. First when you have a scene you have only the musicians
but you cannot you cannot have a scene with only musicians. You need the musicians and you need the
people that work around them so it's necessary to have people like Nick in today's scene.
Building with my hands I mean we've got we've got our senses you know and apart from the five
you know main senses of being able to interpret the world around us we have other ones we have
balance and security you know but making things with your hands man you're touching on all those
senses all of them but it's like this kind of magical thing man it's got a kind of alchemy to
it man when you're manipulating the material around you and the tools that you have to be
able to create something that's greater than the sum of all parts. This is my bread and butter I
don't have a job I still live with my parents but I won't go back to a bar and I won't work some
job where some guy's gonna tell me you know your aprons folded wrong I'm not gonna do that I had
an opportunity to have a workshop I put in some money and I'm sticking sticking this all the way
through. I had two choices and my two choices coming out of my last job were Canada or Lebanon
and Canada there's you know endless tools machinery wood quality I could have easily done it there
but there's a thousand other luthiers over there Lebanon I could be here and I could bend some rules
to truly be able to call myself a luthier there's a there's a big difference between having a luthary
business which is what I'm trying to do and being able to call yourself a luthier because you
don't technically call yourself a luthier until other luthiers are like wow you know and that's
after having built you know minimum 500 instruments and I'm just starting out with my first few here
in Beirut. I've got two electric guitars right now in the works but guitars you there's so much
finesse behind them you've got to really treat it like it's it's something delicate and you
really do fight with it I mean it's not a it's not exactly a play though you know it's not a
forgiving material I don't follow any specific tradition I don't you know I have my own school
of thought and that's kind of what I what I saw and you know everyone who does something something
great is they got their own kind of philosophy that keeps me away from limitations I would say
go ahead
that's cool but I like the sound of it I collect old guitars and mostly cheap old guitars and rare
guitars and not a lot of people are actually ready to touch them the way that I see my shop is
probably similar that you see your bar eventually you know my shop eventually is you go into like
a 1950s barber shop to get your your shit done properly what I like is the fact that like people
like you are getting their instruments fixed tweaked up customized whatever it is so that you can be
comfortable on that stage and in the studio to be able to do what you do at the end of the day
if we're talking about community and you know making this whole thing a communal thing and that
we're all working together to kind of make something bigger it's the musicians that are putting a
thousand people in stadiums and stuff it's not me the world power is fine a lot of people are
excited and enthusiastic when it comes to starting things a lot of starting things but what takes
it takes much more than a than the first willpower and excitement there it takes a lot of fucking breath
this is the kind of shit I put myself in man
just getting rid of all the ugly bits gotta make it pretty again
all just because it didn't work out the paint before man fucking bullshit I lose my confidence
and I regain my confidence whether it's in my work or it's like I get inspired by seeing something
actually happen correctly or to my to my standards it's a circular process and I know it's an up
and down that I have to ride same such as with life you know at the at the present moment my fear
is that I can't do this like I invested time and money into this and I reached to a point where
I'm having doubts about my ability my skill the outcome of my whole situation like I'm feeling
like I'm wasting my time sometimes I got the cuts and scars all over my hands
from from the process and I just keep on going man
it's a constant letting go you know you spend so much time building an instrument one by one
or two by two and then you say goodbye and then someone else loves them for however long
I've been in this shop almost every day except for Sundays since
May 2013 and this is the first instrument to come out of it
guitars you know it's given them a new life I mean before it's the the wind that used to
rustle their leaves and now it's the wood itself rustling the wind to make sound
it's kind of like reversing the whole process again
oh
You
