An Interview with Elliott Trent

Writer’s note: As Elliott’s girlfriend, I’ve been part of his journey into guitars, and having this reflective conversation with him has been both enriching and emotional. The momentum since he decided to make guitars ‘for real’ during the pandemic has been non-stop, I don’t think he’s really had a moment to sit back and look at what he’s achieved. I’m so grateful to be able interview him and share this conversation with you.

How did you go from making films to making guitars?

I’ve always liked making things and I found that what I was doing before the guitars, making things that weren’t tangible, quite unfulfilling. After university I went straight into commercial filmmaking and was doing it for about three or four years. It was fine, but it didn’t have any kind of permanence to it – I felt like the work I was doing was a bit vapid and not for anything.

From studying at AUB, I always wanted to try and make something that actually meant something, whereas in filmmaking you can’t really do that simply. Most of what I did was working for corporate companies and agencies. I fell out of love with it and found myself turning to old hobbies. I’ve always been into DIY and making bits and bobs – I started wondering if I could be a carpenter or a wood worker.

I was lucky enough that my mum’s husband was a builder and a furniture maker, so he helped me get started. That progressed to spending a lot of my free time learning how to make small pieces of furniture. I practiced more and more until I could get to the stage of being able to charge for it. I then made furniture for the next five or six years.

I was lucky enough that my mum’s husband was a builder and a furniture maker, so he helped me get started. That progressed to spending a lot of my free time learning how to make small pieces of furniture. I practiced more and more until I could get to the stage of being able to charge for it. I then made furniture for the next five or six years.

So, when lockdown started, I bought a cheap guitar; I’d played a bit when I was younger but wanted to get back into it. I modified that guitar; I had all the equipment in my workshop. From there I thought I’d have a go at making my own, it’s just a funny shaped piece of furniture – it has a lot of the same elements – especially in the way you break it down from raw materials through to a finished product. So, it wasn’t too much of a transition, to learn how to make them, I just had to work out some idiosyncrasies.

What started out as a personal project turned into a viable business for me, it just snowballed from there. I’m at the stage now where I’ve made more than one hundred of them and I’ve got plenty more to make.

It’s fulfilling the dream I had all along, but I didn’t necessarily know what it would be. I don’t have this like profound musical background. I just really enjoy making them and I enjoy playing them.

You had to build a product and a brand from scratch, how did you manage it?

I made the website, with the help of a friend, and started an Instagram account – I only had a handful of followers to begin with.

In the early days, I’d look at the website analytics almost obsessively and see where my hits were coming from, because I’d only get like 20 visitors a day. One day I saw that I’d been posted about on a forum, and it turned out to be a relatively large UK-based guitar forum. I followed the thread and introduced myself, this is before I’d even sold any of them, I’d just made like one demo guitar (the original model) which I’d spent about six months designing and prototyping.

The forum was great, I was able to talk to this big group of people, they were all really positive and happy to see somebody making what I was making. I offered them a discounted price to buy one, almost at cost so I could get some feedback and to get them out there. From there I launched my Model 1 and sold five in the first few months.

I also sent one off to Guitar.com to be reviewed and at the same time I had a couple of placements on YouTube – I’d reached out to a few well-respected YouTubers to see if they were interested. And since then, it’s just been going from strength to strength. I’ve also given them to a few artists that I like. It really makes you feel good about what you’re making.

As your partner, I’ve seen you spend years trying to carve a niche for yourself. It’s brilliant to see you making guitars and doing something fulfilling, how does it feel for you?

With the furniture, it was good, but I was never going to make a piece like a Hans Wegner or Arne Jacobson. And the income was tricky, it was very much feast or famine. I could do really well one month and the other, I wouldn’t have anything to fall back on.

The guitars have been much more consistent, and I’ve managed to gain a lot of critical acclaim for what it is as a designed object. People consider my Model 1 to be familiar but unique – there are a lot of guitar makers out there who do mainly find success in cloning old designs and there’s nothing wrong with that – but coming in with a novel shape of guitar is much more difficult and the fact that I have managed to succeed doing that, yeah it does feel really good, I guess.

Your guitars have gone on to see a lot of success, I remember watching wet leg perform at the brit awards 2023 with you, and Hester was on stage playing your guitar. It was such an exciting moment. What’s it like seeing an artist play something you’ve made?

It’s always a buzz, there’s a certain level of ego in the reason we make things. I’m not afraid to say that the reason I liked making furniture and the reason I like making guitars is that people see the object, and you can say ‘I made that’. To just see it being used, and for the artist to then go on and make their path through music with it, it’s like no other kind of high really.

How do you want your guitars to be perceived in the industry? I know that you take a lot of inspiration from mid-century styles, is that how you see it?

I want them to feel like tools and I mean that in the most flattering way possible because to me – as a maker of things – tools are everything, they’re the most important things to me. You can’t build the thing without the tools. The idea is that they’re building music, so the guitar is their tool. It should be function above all else and not give in too much to the wants of the maker. It should be simple, attractive of course, but it shouldn’t ever get too complicated, and I think they are the designs that persist in a lot of industries.

If you talk to anyone about a guitar, they’ll probably think about a red Fender Stratocaster. That’s the shape that when you think about a guitar, that’s what it looks like – even the emoji for a guitar looks like one. That’s testament to the design, what other industries can you name where something designed in 1952 still looks current 70 years later?

It doesn’t look dated, it looks timeless, and my hope was to emulate that with what I’m doing. And I think that my design strength is that it’s simple and it serves the musician. It doesn’t steal the show. It’s simple, dependable, well-made, and that’s all you can ask for really, especially in a market like this, that’s completely swamped with options.

One of the big questions on a lot of people’s lips is around sustainability. Is that something that’s really important to you and how do you work that into your process?

That fits nicely with my previous point about design, there’s sustainability in design, as in making something that’s timeless and doesn’t fall out of fashion, that’s able to remain current for its lifetime. For example, companies and designers like Dieter Rams with Braun, objects like that are timeless, they become sustainable because you keep it. If you can make something like that, you’ve done well.

But in terms of my personal commitment, I have a big interest in sustainability, and it appears over time that the people who buy the guitars have also valued that. Starting from the beginning I’ve only ever used water-based finishes rather than the industry norm of either a polyurethane or nitrocellulose finish which are solvent-borne and are worse for the environment. I’m also careful where I source the timber from. As time went on with making my guitars, I started to develop my own hardware that’s made locally, rather than bought from further away, reducing the carbon milage.

I’ve then gone further, and I’ve developed a model that uses nearly all reclaimed or recycled materials that doesn’t look reclaimed. I think that’s quite an easy hole to fall down, making something look rustic, I like the beauty of making something from reclaimed materials that doesn’t look rustic. I want it to look like something new, when in fact it’s made from nearly all non-virgin materials.

I think that if you’re making something that isn’t essential to everyday existence, like a guitar which is often considered a luxury item, you should be mindful of where it comes from. Sustainability is very much at the core of what I do, and I’m committed to doing even more.

Has it always kind of been at the core, or has it been something that’s just developed over time?

I thought about it less before, mainly just through being naïve. When you’re younger you don’t tend to really think as much about these things. But as I’ve become older, I believe more and more in buying used where I can. I’m trying to sell something that’s brand new, so for it to fall in line with how I feel about consumer culture and the world, if I can make it from old things, that makes me really happy because at least now I’m repurposing something directly. It’s not just going to some carbon credits or offsetting somebody else’s carbon spend. It does just feel really cool. And to be honest with you, if I could, I’d do them all from repurposed materials. You have to be feasible because the available material is difficult to come by.

What type of timber have you been able to use for your recycled guitars?

This initial set is from a nuclear research facility and apprentice training school in Winfrith, Dorset. When it closed in the early ‘90s, they had a load of old Honduran mahogany workbenches and I’ve managed to get a hold of that, it’s wonderful wood to work with. It’s exactly what you hope for – it’s perfect for an instrument. Honduran mahogany is a classic Tonewood and it’s rare to get these days.

The fretboards also have a story too, as the timber was used on a marina in its previous lifetime. A lot of the timber in the UK used on piers, groynes and jetties are exotics from our imperial period that we brought over because of their exceptional durability in water. So there’s loads of stuff like that you can get, even things like Burmese teak, you just have to pick through all the pallet wood to find the stuff that’s actually useful.

I don’t have this like, profound musical background. I just really enjoy making them and I enjoy playing them.

Did you always want to be a maker?

Since I was a kid, AUB has been a part of my life, bizarrely. I grew up in like a low economic background. And when I went from primary school to secondary school, I got put forward for this gifted and talented programme, which was for kids like me – single parent with not much income. The programme meant that over the summer holidays for two weeks, we got to go and do animation in the animation studios. My twin brother and I made a paper animation about the Chernobyl disaster. And it was life changing. That was the moment I realised that I wanted to do something in the arts. I didn’t know what, but I knew it was something creative.

After Brockenhurst College I applied to AUB, well it was the AIB then. Anyone who’s studied at AUB knows it’s a place like no other – it’s full of really, really cool people doing something weird or something cool and making these connections. It just confirms that you’re doing the right thing. I may not be in the field that I was in, and what I studied, but it doesn’t matter, because without the experience there I wouldn’t be the person I am now. It makes me emotional thinking about it because you won’t get an experience like that anywhere else.

Looking back on it now and considering where you’ve got to, would you do something different, or pick a different course?

For me, it doesn’t matter what course I did, but it does matter where I went. I had a great time at AUB, I’m glad I didn’t go to some corporate farm, you know?

So, starting up a business and making everything by yourself from the ground up takes a lot of time, how do you balance it all?

One of the reasons I’ve been able to get where I am is because I have a really supportive network of people around me. I’ve got a ridiculously understanding girlfriend. We don’t have children, so I’m in a fortunate position where I’ve been able to maximise my time spent on it, but I do need to balance it a bit more because it’s a lot of work.

Do you think you’ll expand the business?

Essentially, it’s difficult. It’s a relatively hard environment to hire in because the cost of manufacturing in the UK is high because workers’ rights are very good. If I hired someone, I’d have to pay their pension and other numerous things, which I’d love to be able to do it’s just the money has to make sense. The cost of living and the cost of doing business is very high at the moment, but there’s definitely room for making it bigger than just me, it would have to be right, and you have to hire the right people. I’d love to have an apprentice, but I’d want to make sure they’d get value out of it. A lot of luthiers will be solo their whole career, and I could very well be.

What’s your current lead time?

Probably a year.

Wow. That’s crazy, to think that you’ve got that many guitars to make. It must be so satisfying to know that people are ordering and believing in you enough to wait that long.

Yeah, it’s an object that people want to not only make things on but have it forever. It gives you a sense of permanence and tangibility that I didn’t have with making films.

Do you think you’re almost rebelling against your younger self, focusing on something that’s handmade?

I think it’s my old-fashioned side maybe coming out a little bit. I like craft and crafted things and skills, I guess it’s quite interesting that I did pursue a career in the intangible when I am so obsessed with the tangible. Like, I’m a self-professed collector, not hoarder, but I like things.

From living with you, I’d say that they’re particular things you collect, it’s not just anything and everything.

Yeah, I’m very much of the ‘buy once cry once’ mentality. Even if I only need something to do a job once a year, I’ll usually invest in it, I’ll never buy the cheaper option because I like things with a bit more permanence to them that will actually last.

Aside from guitars, what are your other special interests?

Well recently I’ve been modifying motorcycles. I really like repairing and I like engineering. I recently got a lathe and a mill at the workshop which initially started as a hobby in engineering, but it’s turned into me making parts for the guitars now. I’m a particular type of person where my first thought when I want something is ‘could I make it instead?’ Like I’m looking at an amp that I made, I didn’t need to make a guitar, but I did. I’m just obsessed with the idea of making things. So, I’ll make anything I can, whether that’s knives and tools. I think I’m going to be the old man who can just fix anything, one day I’ll have a garage full of all the knickknacks or a workshop.

Dead or alive, who would you want to play your guitar?

Thom Yorke, Radiohead.

So finally, what’s your one piece of advice?

Everyone should know how to hang up a picture. Essentially, it’s a metaphor – it teaches you about the parts that make up a house. It’s something that you can look at and be like ‘yeah I hung that, I didn’t call the guy on Gumtree or get mum or dad to come and do it.’ I’m not trying to being like ‘back in my day’ or any bollocks like that, I just mean people have had their confidence taken away from them and hanging a picture is a good place to start.