Guitar God: An Afternoon with Master Luthier Kevin Ryan

Published by La Musiconomy

I was about to learn the front door to Ryan Guitars in Westminster, California is locked on Fridays—and any other time Kevin Ryan’s wife, Barbara, isn’t working at the front desk. A few fruitless pulls on the door handle and I decide my interview appointment with Kevin Ryan is authority enough to enter the white industrial apartment through the open garage door around back.

The garage entrance inverts the traditional shop tour. From this direction the means and mechanisms of the guitar maker’s craft are showcased first: the heavy cutting machines and tools which assist in the production of some of the world’s finest guitars. Neither beauty nor music is so much as suggested at this point of my self-guided tour. At the far end of the cramped workspace, I use both arms to part a heavy yellowed plastic drape and wind up in the very heart of the dusty workshop bathed in late afternoon light.

The master guitar maker, Kevin Ryan, is seated beside a worktable, leaning back in a worn desk chair. He looks comfortable in a slightly worn, dark teal jogging fleece. A cigar smolders between his fingers. It turns out he’s happy as well as comfortable. I’m interrupting a conversation with a shop assistant about board games. Ryan admits, he’s really interested in “spreading the gospel of board games.” He speaks at length about the burgeoning community of board gamers (they’re mostly Europeans), his favorite games (recent: Age of Steam, all-time: War of the Ring), and the difference between board games and computer games (board games require more elaborate social engagement). He’s developed an extensive knowledge of the hobby over countless hours playing titles he owns (over 150 games) and paging through boardgamegeek.com—referred to affectionately and authoritatively throughout our conversation as “The Geek.”

The worn shop surfaces and muted sounds of the workshop point to the men’s due diligence. Monday through Thursday, Ryan Guitars’ small band of employees don’t slow down much. Ryan and his associates enjoy pushing through the workweek to take one long break, all at once. The only implements taken down from the carefully organized shelves on this Friday afternoon are a wooden cigar box, a heavy silver cigar lighter, and an eclectic selection of liquors. Notwithstanding the locked front door, Fridays are an open house for Ryan’s co-workers and friends. This small team of craftsmen have discovered their weekly practice of making musical instruments, like the creation of music itself, is improved by the placement of well-timed rests.

The instruments created by the hands in this circle have made their way into the hands of some of the most respected fingerstyle guitarists in the world. Kevin Ryan’s first models for Peter Finger, Laurence Juber, Pierre Bensusan and Jackson Browne launched his reputation around the back-stage water cooler and, in time, he had orders from other talents like Muriel Anderson, Pat Donohue, Woody Mann, Al Petteway and Amy White.

Kevin Ryan rules the wallets and wish lists of renowned guitar players with a product he started refining in his parent’s garage, while working full-time as an aerospace engineer. He says he is humbled by the accolades but he never understates his accomplishment or potential. Early in his guitar making career, Ryan fielded this interview question: “Do you think that one day you’ll make the Holy Grail of guitars?” A 1999 article relates Ryan’s stated ambitions, ever since designing his first guitar, “to build an instrument with an unamplified responsiveness second to none” (Acoustic Guitar, April). And a 2002 interview published on the Ryan Guitars website puts Kevin Ryan on record about the Grail question: “I guess, if I didn't believe that somehow we ultimately could [build the Holy Grail of guitars] I would want to close up the shop. It's a great hope, but there is also humility in me that wants to say maybe we won't even know if we built it!”

The guitars only feature into a part of Kevin Ryan’s ambitions these days. For the last three years, Ryan has been trying to make time to write a novel. After spending time with him, this pursuit isn’t surprising. Kevin Ryan has the way of a writer. He speaks carefully and he has an evangelistic way of correcting other people’s speech—similar to how he talks about board games, it’s all for the other person’s good. (“The shop” also has a policy forbidding the word “like” unless it’s used to make a comparison or point out a similarity or personal preference. Violators pay 25 cents.)

A careful attention to the shape of things distinguishes the whole range of Ryan’s pursuits, yet he’s totally undeterred by being an amateur. He wants me to read some the first chapters of his forthcoming epic adventure tale and makes sure I know he wants the pages back covered in editorial suggestions. He says the story he’s developing is all about the triumph of “the traditional virtues”—a cast of ordinary characters like hobbits or Pevensie siblings (starring characters in The Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia, respectively) winning out over great obstacles through tests of loyalty, honesty, courage and self-restraint. The leading characters in Kevin Ryan’s story are mice—“no taller than the shoulder of an average wolf”—but they bear strong resemblances to the men and women he most admires in non-fiction.

As Kevin Ryan discusses his book, I realize how he has made it as a luthier. The humble perfectionist is on a journey of self-denial—dedicated solely to an end-goal. The perils of craftsmanship aren’t so very different from the obstacles in a big adventure story or large-scale strategy game for that matter. In all such cases, success comes with lots and lots of focused attention and work. The world’s best guitars aren’t made by magic wands, after all—a device Ryan vows will not appear in his forthcoming book.

Ryan has an appointment in San Diego and needs to get home and change clothes before waiting in the southbound traffic. So, I only get to see a few of his finished guitars before I leave. One of the finished models features Ryan’s signature arm bevel—designed to make the instrument more comfortable to hold and play. Another guitar is waiting on some final touches. On this one, there’s a small diamond-shaped opening at the base of the headstock. If you look carefully inside the hole, it’s possible to see neat illegible pencil markings beneath a thick coat of lacquer. Eventually, the space will be covered up with a small, decorative plate. But those embalmed pencil markings take me back to the layers of Ryan’s process: Decision upon decision. Action after action. Eventually, an instrument of profound beauty and resonance. Kevin Ryan has been showing up and honing his craft, day after day, for over twenty years. His art truly imitates his life.