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PODCAST

Life With Strings Attached

Everything in life is better understood if you can learn to see the strings attached.Life With Strings Attached is a long-form conversation series hosted by Jamie Gale that explores the people, ideas, and disciplines shaping the evolving world of the guitar.Drawing on decades of experience across touring, retail, distribution, manufacturing, education, consulting, and global cultural exchange, Jamie brings together builders, designers, artists, scientists, historians, entrepreneurs, collectors, and

music music interviews

All Episodes

66:51

Hozen | Why He Walked Away From 4000 Guitars a Month

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/10/02

Today on Life With Strings Attached, I'm joined by Hozen Yong, the founder of Hozen Guitars and a builder whose mission it has been to bring boutique-level responsiveness and craftsmanship to a wider range of players. His path started in Singapore, surrounded by his family's piano business. But rather than take over the family business, he chose his own path in guitars, teaching himself the craft through relentless curiosity, experimentation and listening to musicians. After building Maestr...

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120:55

What Ants, How to Train Your Dragon and a Teuffel...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/09/25

Today on Life With Strings Attached, I sit down with filmmaker and storyteller Tim C. Johnson for a conversation about what guitars, animation and great stories have in common. From the creative worlds behind films like Ants, Over the Hedge and How to Train Your Dragon, to the radical beauty of instruments by builders like Ulrich Teufel and Eric Weigeshoff, Tim explores why the most meaningful art requires insightful observation before you can meaningfully challenge expectations. Together, Ti...

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73:39

Marcel Fehse | The All-Aluminum Guitar Nobody Asked For

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/09/18

Today on Life With Strings Attached, I'm joined by Marcel Fehse, a German guitar maker whose instruments challenge almost every assumption about how a guitar should be built. Drawing on a background in metalworking, he's developed a striking all-aluminum approach that's not just about changing materials. It's about rethinking the instrument from the inside out. We talk about craftsmanship, prototypes, finding the right balance of strength, weight and tone, and what it takes to keep moving fo...

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91:09

Ola Strandberg | Titanium Necks, AI and the Guitar...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/09/11

Today on Life With Strings Attached, I'm joined by Ola Strandberg, the guitar designer, innovator, and creative force behind Strandberg Guitars. We talked about the small design decisions that make a huge difference, from neck materials and tremolo systems to serviceability, ergonomics, and the long road from the first idea to a finished instrument. Along the way, we also get into creativity, AI, production constraints, and why thoughtful limitations can lead to better design. Ola also shar...

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57:44

The Two Towers Guitar in the Valley That Inspired...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/09/04

You can see the Two Towers in person right now on the BGS enTour 2026. Find dates and locations here: https://www.boutiqueguitarshowcase.com/about-entour In the summer of 1911, a 19-year-old J.R.R. Tolkien hiked through the Swiss Alps with a group of friends. What he found in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, with its 72 waterfalls, sheer cliffs and snow-capped peaks, would stay with him for the rest of his life. Decades later, he wrote to his son: "The hobbit's journey from Rivendell to the other s...

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104:56

Why Should a Musician Adapt to an Instrument? |...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/08/28

My guest today is Jerome Little, founder of Torzal Guitars and the mind behind the Natural Twist. Jerome’s story begins in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where making things, solving problems, and figuring things out for yourself were simply part of growing up. He started playing bass as a teenager, studied music and acoustics at Hampshire College, and eventually brought those interests together when he began asking a deceptively simple question: why should a musician have to adapt their body ...

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55:24

When Life Tests the Maker | Simon Padalka

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/08/21

Today's guest is luthier and architect Simon Padalka, a guitar maker with few peers. In this conversation we talk about the dramatic events that unfolded at the end of the 2025 Boutique Guitar Showcase enTour season, when the Padalka guitar that sold on tour was caught in a truck fire in Phoenix, Arizona. Thought lost, then to everyone's surprise the guitar popped up again for sale a few weeks later, thickening an already unusual plot. We talk about how to handle the tough situations that w...

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86:03

André Gonçalves (ADDAC System) | When Modular...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/08/14

In this episode, I speak with Lisbon-based artist, musician, and instrument designer André Gonçalves of ADDAC System. For sixteen years, André has explored modular synthesis, experimental music, and the physical interfaces that make electronic sound feel immediate and human. His ADDAC120 Four String Series brings those worlds together, integrating guitar strings, pickups, motors, bows, and resonators into a modular synthesizer environment. Our conversation moves through the future of musica...

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82:19

From a Guitar Shop at 19 to the World's Biggest...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/08/07

In this episode, I sit down with Chris Griffiths, someone I’ve known for nearly twenty-five years and whose remarkable career I’ve had the opportunity to see unfold firsthand. Chris opened his first guitar shop at nineteen, trained as a guitar maker and went on to found Garrison Guitars, where he developed an entirely new approach to building an acoustic guitar. His path has since taken him through Parker, Dingwall and a range of influential music-industry companies, before leading to his cu...

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97:13

30 Years, Kirk Hammett and the Guitar That Never...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/08/01

Welcome to Life with Strings Attached. I'm your host, Jamie Gale. Today's guest is Nik Huber, one of the most well-respected guitar makers in the world. 30 years is a remarkable milestone for any guitar maker. It's long enough to build thousands of instruments, earn the trust of musicians around the world and prove that quality could stand the test of time. Nik Huber and I first met at our very first NAMM show when we both were just the beginning of our careers. Over the last 25 years, I've...

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68:16

D'Angelico, Loar and Why New York Changed the Guitar...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/07/24

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached. I'm your host, Jamie Gale. My guest today is famed archtop guitar maker Cristian Mirabella. This episode is the result of an impromptu conversation at the end of Cristian's biography episode. After our first recording, Cristian and I kept on talking, and it became clear that there was another thread worth following, the history of the archtop guitar, and how that story moves from Cremona to Michigan, New York, Canada and beyond. So I asked if we could ...

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100:27

The Man Who Made Rust Beautiful | James Trussart

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/07/17

Every guitar James Trussart builds carries far more than steel, wood, and craftsmanship. It carries the influences of a life lived across France, Louisiana, and Los Angeles, a fascination with history, and an unwavering belief that every instrument should contribute something new to the ongoing conversation of the guitar. We talk about freedom, creativity, memory, music, travel, craftsmanship, and the responsibility of preserving stories before they’re lost. Along the way, James reflects o...

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64:04

Biography | The Story of Markus Spohn

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/07/10

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached. I'm your host, Jamie Gale. This episode was filmed live on location at Tom Anderson Guitar Works in Southern California. My guest today is Markus Spohn, co-owner of Tom Anderson Guitar Works. Born in a mining region of West Germany, the story begins far from the guitar workshops in Southern California. Markus first came to Anderson as a player and a customer. Then he became the person helping build the system behind the company and over time he became k...

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89:24

Biography | The Story of Cristian Mirabella

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/07/03

My guest today is famed archtop guitar maker Cristian Mirabella. Cristian's story begins in New York, on Long Island, in a family shaped by music, resilience and a deep sense of purpose. At just 10 years old, Cristian started working at Ronnie's guitar shop, where he swept floors, polished instruments, learned repairs and found himself surrounded by working musicians, vintage archtops, Gibson, D'Angelico, D'Aquisto and the living culture of the New York guitar world. In this conversat...

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106:34

Biography | The Story of Steve Klein

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/06/26

Today's special biography episode with legendary guitar maker, Steve Klein, was filmed live on location in Northern California. Steve's story begins in San Francisco in 1949. It's a story shaped by Austrian immigrants who were ski instructors, scientists, artists, and the generation that came of age during one of the most creative periods in California's history. Over the next six decades, Steve would build a career that reflected the same curiosity that shaped his childhood as he continues...

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80:26

Biography | The Story of Ervin Somogyi

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/06/19

Today's special biography episode with legendary guitar maker, Ervin Somogyi, was filmed live at a location in Northern California. Ervin's tour begins in Budapest during the Second World War. The son of parents whose lives had been shaped by conflict and displacement, his early years carried him across Europe, through Cuba and Mexico, and eventually to the United States. Along the way, he developed a fascination with making things, models, drawings, woodwork, anything that could be bu...

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78:26

Tom Anderson & Markus Spohn | Passing the Torch at...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/06/12

This episode is filmed live on location at Anderson Guitarworks in Southern California, where I sat down with the company's co-owners Tom Anderson and Markus Spohn. Now, in their fifth decade, Tom Anderson Guitarworks has earned one of the best reputations in the guitar world. Tom speaks with the clarity of someone who has spent decades refining an idea, not simply chasing perfection, but showing up daily to work and asking what we could do better. Markus brings the perspective of a player, ...

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92:18

David Sutkin | What 350 Basses Taught Me About Craft,...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/06/05

This episode was filmed live on location in Tuscany, where we sat down with David Sutkin, founder of Bass UpFront. A global community of more than 36.000 bass players, builders, collectors, people who care deeply about the instrument. David is known for his remarkable collection, the Bass UpFront studio and the conversation he's held built around bass culture. He brings a player's ear, a collector's eye, and a deep respect for the people who dedicate their lives to making the instruments.&nb...

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67:34

Biography | The Story of Sheldon Dingwall

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/05/29

This episode was filmed live on location in Tuscany, where I sat down with revolutionary guitar maker Sheldon Dingwall to document his biography. He'll be the first to tell you that he didn't invent the multiscale concept, but he recognized what it could solve for the bass, replied it with purpose, and in 1993 brought the first production multiscale bass to the market. From there, Dingwall guitars has continued to innovate through hardware, pickups, strings, electronics, and notable co...

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85:00

50 Years of EMG | Rob Turner on Metallica, Active...

Life With Strings Attached ·

2026/05/22

Today's episode was filmed on location in Northern California at the headquarters of EMG. Our guest is Rob Turner, founder of EMG pickups, a company that helped change the sound, function, and possibility to the electric guitar, becoming synonymous with some of the most famous musicians in the world. Rob grew up in Long Beach, California, in a family where engineering, music, electronics, and making things were part of everyday life. He describes his mother as an artist in nearly every sense...

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130 results

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