Today we’d like to introduce you to Nate DeMont.
Nate, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I built my first guitar, along with various pieces of furniture, in high school, as Oswego High School, at the time, had the best woodworking program in the state.
After graduation, I went to school for music and recording engineering but worked part-time for the school district in maintenance and eventually was offered a full-time maintenance position. From there, I moved on to construction (home), and then as commercial maintenance and locksmith for a chain of banks.
During this time, I competed in weightlifting competitions; even earning my personal training certificate, but eventually became too injured to continue.
While recovering from surgery, all my spare time was spent working on guitars, since I could not do much more than sit at a desk. That summer in 2019, I fixed up more than a dozen used guitars and sold them all at a garage sale, and it hasn’t stopped.
We specialize in unique vintage guitars, and I began collecting “Guyatone” made instruments. Eventually, I became friends with the company in Japan and now myself along with R&D engineer, Toshi Torii, run both DeMont Guitars and Guyatone in the US and Japan.
Here in Oswego, we have a goal to make as many of the parts for our guitars as we can and trying to use local material. We cut and mill local trees, as well as dry and process them. We also harvest mother-of-pearl shell from the fox river for inlays and make our guitar bodies, necks, pickguards, and even magnetic coil-pickups right here in-house.
Currently, we are working with Mr. Torii in Japan to finish up some new guitar effects pedal designs – the first of which we made and completed here. Our new models will be cast in Japan and created collaboratively.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not exactly! Although I’ve had a tremendous amount of help from friends, family, and industry professionals who recognized and appreciated my passion, there are constant issues that most any small business might face, such as money, inventory, quality control, employee management. But there are also issues that most small companies may not have to deal with, both good at bad. Visiting Japan was an excellent opportunity and experience, but at the same time, because of our line of industry, we are in a constant legal struggle with copyrights, trademarks, and intellectual property theft issues.
In December 2017, we also sustained a fire overnight in our shop – losing several tons of lumber, many tools, products, and putting us about nine months behind schedule.
DeMont Guitars – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I get very excited about any of our projects and love to make “something” from “nothing.”
I’m proud to be a part of Guyatone, which played a huge part in electric guitars (being the first electric guitar to be imported directly from Japan to the customer in 1958).
My relationships with the people behind the scenes the music business industry are something personally humbling to me as well.
I’m probably known for being quite eccentric and often over-the-top. Never angry, but always in a hurry.
It makes me proud to bring manufacturing back to the Chicago-land area. At one point, this was the central hub for the majority of guitars made in the US. We’d really like to bring that back and do it with some originality. Money is a necessity, but not our first priority, which is a business model not taught to me in my college music-business course (which by the way, is the only class I’ve ever failed).
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The designer, R&D Engineer, Toshi Torii, gifted me a guitar as a wedding gift, which I had known to be in his collection before he even knew who I was.
Pricing:
- Vintage / Used guitars from $80-a lot
- Repair and maintenance services from $60+
- Lessons $20/half hour
- Our own USA made guitars starting under $1,000
Contact Info:
- Address: 61A Stonehill Road, Oswego, IL 60543
- Website: www.DeMontGuitars.com , www.Guyatone.com , www.UkuleleThreads.com
- Phone: 3474336668
- Email: info@demontguitars.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/DeMontGuitars instagram.com/Guyatone
- Facebook: facebook.com/DeMontGuitars facebook.com/Guyatone
- Twitter: twitter.com/DeMontGuitars twitter.com/GuyatoneGuitars
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/demont-guitars-oswego
Image Credit:
Randy Benzie
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