Guitar Build Workshop

08/26/2026

Introducing instructor/Master Luthier Greg Pauza

Greg came to us in probably the most normal way possible: an email.

He lived nearby, had walked past the shop, checked out our website, thought what we were doing looked cool, and reached out. We get plenty of emails from people wanting to work with us, but we just don't make enough money to hire everybody—or really anybody.

But Greg had one particularly interesting company on his resume. It happened to be a company we shared in our work histories, and we'll just say it was a... unique place to work.

So I invited him over to hang out. That hang turned into another, then another. Eventually Greg learned the ropes, started helping with classes, and became a permanent fixture. I don't actually remember hiring him, so I guess he just kept showing up until we gave him a key.

Greg's pedigree is in mandolins. He apprenticed at Randolin Music in Vermont before moving into acoustic guitar building at the aforementioned nameless company. Electric guitars were new territory, but he picked them up quickly and became a great builder and instructor.

Greg is the youngster of the shop, but don't let that worry you. He's a Rush fan and knows enough Gen X stuff that we've decided to let him stay. He does have a strange obsession with the Fast & Furious movies, but the guy can build a guitar, so sometimes you have to look past certain character flaws.

Like all of us, Greg has a day job. He's a mechanical engineer who helps with pretty much everything around GBW, including CNC manufacturing and, more recently, the joys of CNC maintenance.

Greg also understands that this little venture is mostly a labor of love, not necessarily a millionaire's quest. But he's trying to change that as our new Vice President of Sales for Tennessee Electric Company, a prestigious executive position that also includes cleaning bathrooms, taking out the trash, and emptying dust collection bags.

So please welcome:

Master Luthier
Vice President of Sales
Instructor
Mechanical Engineer
New Dad
Rush Aficionado
CNC Maintenance Technician
Janitorial Services

Oh yeah, occasionally he has to take me to the ER for stitches.

Mr. Greg Pauza.

08/26/2026

Hey everybody, I want to introduce one of our instructors, Mr. Kelly Butler, AKA The World’s Most Handsome Luthier.

Apparently, you can just give yourself nicknames now, so Kelly has really run with it.

I hate to admit this because it’s only going to give him a bigger head, but Kelly is genuinely one of my favorite people in the guitar industry, and just in general.

Kelly came to us about six years ago, sad, lonely, and desperately needing a guitar shop to hang around in. We reluctantly let him through the door and gave him some food. And you know what they say: feed a stray cat once and it keeps coming back. Apparently the same thing applies to Kelly.

All joking aside, Kelly is a spectacular guitar builder and an even better instructor. When you sign up for one of our Saturday classes or a corporate event, there’s a pretty good chance he might be your very own guitar-building guru for the day.

And the guy has quite a résumé.

Kelly trained at the renowned Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix, Arizona. He spent years at the Gibson Custom Shop as one of their luthiers before being recruited by First Act in the early 2000s to help launch and build their custom shop in Boston.

For those who don’t remember First Act, they were EVERYWHERE in the 2000s. Kelly helped set up their operation from scratch, designed a ton of their instruments, and left a pretty big fingerprint on what that company became.

These days, he has his own brand, K Butler Guitars, right here in Nashville, and he is also an absolute finishing guru. Lacquer, polyurethane, paint, buffing, spraying, fixing the thing somebody else messed up… Kelly knows his stuff.

Which, as you can imagine, is pretty handy when you’re trying to teach a room full of people how to build guitars.

When he’s not building guitars, teaching classes, or selling paint, you can usually find Kelly in his front yard practicing/teaching karate to his children, his neighbors, passing deer, unsuspecting raccoons, or basically anyone who happens to be within viewing distance.

And no board is safe if it’s within arm’s reach.

Mr. Kelly Butler

08/26/2026

I’d like to introduce Jeremy Colas, who has been with us from the get-go. Day number one.

Jeremy and I met during my early days in Nashville, right around the time he started working at Advanced Plating. He immediately became my go-to guy for all things guitar setup and playability. When Jeremy sets up a guitar, that thing is ready to go.

Jeremy can handle every aspect of guitar building, but his real specialty is setup, playability, tone, electronics, and pickups. If you’re chasing down a buzz, trying to get a guitar playing perfectly, or wondering why something just doesn’t sound quite right, Jeremy is the guy you want looking at it. He has an incredible understanding of all the little details that make a guitar feel and sound the way it should.

Like most of us in the guitar world, Jeremy has a day job. His happens to be at Advanced Plating here in Nashville. Most people outside the industry probably don’t know the name, but they are one of those behind-the-scenes companies that touches an unbelievable amount of the guitar industry. And Jeremy is one of the guys behind the scenes making it happen. If you have a component that needs to be manufactured, plated, engineered, or designed from scratch, Jeremy is your guy. It’s kind of an unsung-hero job, but that seems to be in his DNA.

Jeremy made his way to Nashville via the Washington, D.C. area to pursue music, college, and performance, which ultimately led him to us.

When Jeremy isn’t playing guitar, he’s talking about guitars. And when he isn’t talking about guitars, he’s probably talking about guitars.

He’s been with us so long that I’d consider him number two in charge, but as everybody in the guitar industry knows, you can’t really manage guitar people. You just hope to corral them.

So, introducing Master Luthier / Musician / Instructor / Dad, Jeremy Colas.

We’re lucky to have had him around since day one.

08/23/2026

Jeremy and Jessica from WAY East Tennessee stopped by the shop today!

They’re in Nashville on a father-daughter trip, taking in all the sights and sounds, and a couple months ago they signed up for Guitar Build Workshop as the grand finale of their trip.

The world’s most handsome luthier, Kelly Butler, presided over another fantastic class, and these two walked away with a couple of spectacular finished projects. That blue guitar and red bass turned out killer!

Jeremy and Jessica, thank you so much for choosing to spend part of your Nashville vacation with us. We had a blast having you in the shop, and we hope these guitars always remind you of a pretty great father-daughter trip to Music City.

Safe travels back to WAY East Tennessee!

08/22/2026

Another GBW Classic, from way back.

These two are longtime friends. So longtime that they’re basically family. Big Sam and his daughter Christina came down for a father-daughter trip to Nashville to build guitars with me.

Big Sam has been around since I was about five years old, and most people don’t know this, but my guitar career got off to a pretty sketchy start.

My freshman year of college, I bought a guitar from a pawn shop. I played it for about two months and could not figure out why I couldn’t make a decent sound come out of the thing.

This was before YouTube and cell phones, so eventually I walked over to Big Sam’s house and knocked on his door like a door-to-door salesman.

He opened the door, probably wondering what the heck I was doing there, and I basically said, “Help.”

He was one of the only guys I knew who could play guitar. He picked mine up, messed with it for a second, and said, “You have to tune it.”

Yep.

I had absolutely no idea you had to tune a guitar.

I thought you put the strings on and you were done.

Once Big Sam showed me that little piece of apparently VERY important information, good sounds finally started coming out of my guitar. And the guitar journey continued.

Fast forward all those years and here we are, Big Sam and Christina building guitars with me in Nashville.

Such a great class and such a great memory.

And one more little piece of GBW history: Big Sam was also one of my very first custom guitar customers.

Funny how some things come full circle.

08/22/2026

Fun little project we were honored to help Dr. DFlo with over at Vanderbilt’s School of Engineering. Always fun getting to collaborate, solve some problems, and help bring a cool idea to life.

08/21/2026

Here’s another GBW Classic.

This one is extra special. Meet our buddy Todd Elgin, a Nashville singer-songwriter and creative, and most importantly, our very first student.

Todd was the first person to ever take a Guitar Build Workshop class who wasn’t a family member or friend. I still remember the first time my phone dinged with an order and thinking, OMG somebody actually signed up.

And it hasn’t stopped since.

Todd built this awesome yellow guitar, and at the end of class he treated us to a solo performance of his song “Beer Tree” on the guitar he had just built.

Looking back, this class really was the epitome of “If you build it, they will come.”

Thank you, Todd, for taking a chance on us before we had a track record or any proof that this crazy idea was actually going to work. You helped set the table for every class that came after.

And thanks for “Beer Tree.” We still remember it.

Check him out as a member of the Ukedelics here in town.

08/21/2026

Introducing GBW CLASSICS 🎸

We’re starting a new series digging into the archives and sharing some of our favorite builds and classes from the early days of Guitar Build Workshop.

And please pardon the photo quality on some of these. Apparently I was committed to the flip phone lifestyle a little longer than the rest of the world.

First up: Claira, from about 10 years ago!

She absolutely knocked it out of the park with this Galaxy Burst. 🌌🎸

This class is memorable for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorites is that we actually had a roof leak during the build. A little water splashed onto her guitar.....and instead of ruining anything, it created this completely unexpected effect that made the finish even cooler. Sometimes the best design decisions come from a leaky roof.

And who would've thought that all these years later, Claira would end up being my boss?!

08/19/2026