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 Photo Credit: Mark Lobo - www.marklobo.com.au
GEARED: Could you say you’ve been around guitars all your life, John?
JOHN DAVIS: Yes – I started as a drummer, but I was really rubbish at that [laughs], so I moved on to guitar when I was about 14 or 15. The Guitar Repairers has been around for 10 years as a shop, and before that I had my business running out of The Guitar Shop, which I started in 1997, and then before that, I was in the same building when it was called The Music Junction.
G: I noticed some beautiful vintage acoustic guitars at The Guitar Repairers and it says that your oldest restored instrument dates back to the 19th century.
JD: There are actually two in the shop at the moment – one’s been restored and dates back to 1874, and the other one is actually my guitar. It was in the first pile of the guitars we restored and it dates back to 1876. It’s still being used in a fully functional live setting as well.
Those guitars, my father was living in New York at the time and I went over to see him and go to one of the largest antique fairs in upstate New York – that’s where I found those two guitars. I bought them and they sat around for a while because we didn’t know what to do, really [laughs]. Finally, we got around to restoring them – I kept one and the other one sold really quickly; I thought “well, there’s a market here” and we started scouring eBay and whatnot. I also kept contact with the guy who sold me the first two and we started importing them – that’s basically how it started. We restored 60-odd guitars of that ilk and that was the passport of getting them into the hands of well-known songwriters and guitar players.
G: You’ve had many ‘name’ clients – could you name a couple favourites?
JD: Let’s see… Guy Pearce. He came in one day and I wasn’t actually taking much notice as I was having a grumpy day [laughs]. One of my boys had a bit of a chat with him and he was interested in our pile of guitars; after he left, Andrew [Sydes; Skinny Jean], who was working with me at the time, said to me “this guy looks just like Guy Pearce!” and I was like, “yeah right, whatever”. The next day, he came back and sure enough, it was Guy Pearce. He hung out in the shop all afternoon and ended up buying two guitars and one of our old mandolins. That was a bit exciting and he was lovely.
Neil Finn bought three guitars from us, and then in November 2010 he dropped in one Wednesday afternoon – we went to the show that night and hung out with him and his band afterwards. Shane Watson, the cricketer – he’s friends with Jimmy Barnes and Jimmy has a bunch of our guitars, but to give full credit, the person who got this whole ball rolling was Mark Lizotte, or Johnny Diesel. He told Jimmy, who bought some guitars and told Neil Finn, who bought some guitars – a whole kind of a knock-on effect that had happened. The Kill Devil Hills bought a guitar recently as well.
G: I understand Tim Steward also has a lot of association with The Guitar Repairers.
JD: Tim’s a very dear friend – he was at my wedding and that says something. We’ve known each other since 1992; he’s also the guy who designed our website. Timmy’s a genius, absolutely. Phil Usher from Grand Atlantic, Dan James from Drawn From Bees – they’re all very good friends. We also have a lot of the young bands like Last Dinosaurs, Hungry Kids Of Hungary… too many names! I actually get confused because they’re all 20-something and cute [laughs].
G: What are some of the more unusual instruments you’ve worked on?
JD: We did some work for Jeff Martin – he has a Gibson Harp Guitar. When The Armada were playing at The Zoo, I got to the door and they said “you’re from The Guitar Repairers? They need you backstage right now!” The security guard whisked me backstage to see the harp guitar, but I didn’t have my tools with me, so I couldn’t operate at that point [laughs]. We had it in the shop later – it’s an amazing thing. You look at it and it’s just so beautiful; as an instrument, it’s almost intimidating to think that anyone can play it, but of course, Jeff can. That’s one of the more unusual ones.
THE GUITAR REPAIRERS is located at 208 Musgrave Rd, Red Hill. For more information on John and his shop check out www.guitarrepairers.com or call 3368 1833.
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