Opportunity knocks for Geelong’s guitar man

Andrew Mathieson
A KNOCK on the door was all it took to convince John McGrath he had a future with guitars.
It was 25 years ago and John was an aspiring 23-year-old guitar maker.
The son of a former carpenter had already been fortunate to spend 12 months with luthier Steven Gilchrist, now acclaimed as the world’s leading name behind the best mandolins.
The experience at least taught John the finer things about finishing instruments but still the novice was learning the craft from just two basic guitar books.
On the other side of the door that day stood Colin Hay with a smile and a passing curiosity.
John’s dreams had just come true.
Accompanied by his manager, who was also one of John’s long-time friends, the Men at Work lead singer strolled inside and peered at the empty guitar bodies scattered throughout the room.
“He basically pointed and said when ‘When that one’s finished let me know so I can have a look at it’,” John recalls.
“And that’s what he did a couple of months later.”
The first guitar John sold that year was to a nobody but the second was a superstar of acoustic sounds.
Another was to rock legends The Eagles and the word spread to prominent session musician David Lindley.
But it’s Colin Hay’s music that has never been too far away from John.
Stacked up side by side, a pile of Hay’s solo CDs lie just metres from where John gives life to music.
Sitting in his workshop, he is reluctant to try counting the many guitars he’s made over the years.
“It’s probably in the hundreds but certainly not the thousands,” John guesses.
He looks behind at the current batch and mouths the number of waiting guitars.
“There’s nine under way,” he counts.
“But I think I have overdone myself. They take about 150 hours, depending on what people want.”
The decorative side to a guitar can add many hours, almost as much as building them.
Too much for a one-man operation, John reckons.
Inspired by traditional American-style sounds, John is known in music circles close to home for the clean and crisp nature of his guitars.
“But I’m still learning and the discoveries are still happening,” he confesses.
“Nowadays I’m just trying to refine my techniques and find more efficient ways of doing it.
“One of the most important things is attention to detail and just to do really nice, tight joinery.”
Despite the hundreds of guitars that pass through John’s hands, he’s never tempted to put the perfect instrument aside.
After playing guitars for more than 20 years, the East Geelong resident owns just one.
“It’s actually the first one I ever strung up, which I had a really hard time trying to part with,” John says.
“That was made about 1982. It’s definitely a different instrument to what I make these days.
“It still sounds fantastic and I’d say it sounds better now than it did then.
“I don’t think I would ever get rid of it.”
A self-confessed knockabout muso, John says playing the guitar certainly helps his craft.
But not playing, he laughs.
“I do play,” he hesitates before adding, “well, I dabble, at best.
“I’ve played in a few hack bands – no disrespect to any of the people I’ve played with.”
John’s standing as one of Geelong’s most eminent guitar makers is never in question.
But his living has been.
Some shake their heads in disbelief at the thought this is not just a pastime on the side.
Just don’t call him a luthier – somebody that makes or repairs stringed instruments – though.
“It just confuses people,” John smiles.
“They think you’re a member of some weird Pentecostal religion.”