If you're not familiar with Dax&Co. Guitars, it may just be time to change that.
Founded by Dax Bryan over 15 years ago, Dax&Co. Guitars became known for customizing and relic'ing Fenders, Gibson, and other brand-name instruments at a fraction of the cost of other outfits. Now, Dax&Co. has expanded into custom builds and Tele-style guitar lines utilizing unconventional guitar materials, such as metal.
We had a chance to talk with Dax and learn more about the history of the company, from its beginnings as a furniture customization shop to its growth into relic'ing and building unique instruments that are as comfortable and fun to play as they are to showcase on your wall.
Read below to learn more about the brand, and be sure to visit the official Dax&Co. Guitars Reverb Shop to check out all of the guitars pictured below (and more!) and to grab your own right here on Reverb.
What got you interested in guitars?
My dad learned how to play guitar when he was in Vietnam. When I was a kid, he would always play us Hank Williams tunes. I picked up a guitar when I was 12. "House of the Rising Sun" was the first full song I learned to play.
From my teen years on, I always had a fascination with guitars. I’d take them apart and put them back together to see how they worked. When I started playing in bands, I would modify my guitars to get the sound I wanted, but it wasn’t until about 2012 that I started to get serious about guitar building.
How did you get in to relic’ing guitars?
It’s a funny story. Before it was Dax&Co. Guitars, it was Dax&Co Furniture. I would get old furniture to fix, paint, and distress to look old. This was back when "shabby chic" was all the rage. Then I saw a guitar for sale on the internet that looked like it had the distressed finish that I was doing to the furniture, and they called it a relic. I was so tired of lugging heavy dressers and armoires around, I thought if I could switch to guitars, I’d have it made since they are light and can be shipped anywhere.
My first relic attempt was crude. I literally took the guitar to the curb and started grinding it on the edge of the concrete. It sold for $100 more that I paid for it… and it was a green light from there. I’ve honed my skills over the last 15 years and have relic’d over 1,200 guitars to date. They’ve gone all over the world. Some have even gotten into the hands of famous players and top collectors.
Why metal guitars?
It was the natural order of things for me, so to speak. My dad was a welder by trade and has a full welding shop. I started my first business when I was in my 20s, called Fusion Furnishings, making artistic metal furniture with stained glass incorporated onto the design. It just didn’t make enough money to pay the bills since the pieces were too heavy to ship and too labor-intensive to make, but I’ve always loved working with metal.
I have an old Rickenbacker lap steel that I got at a yard sale for $5. It has some of the best tone I’ve ever heard in any guitar. I always wanted to somehow make an electric guitar that had that magic tone. After many prototypes, I finally found what I was looking for, which are the guitars I’m making now: the Ironhorse. Once I finally stumbled on to what the other metal builders were doing out there, it was just fate.
What’s so special about your guitars?
I wanted to create a guitar that was not only new and exciting but still had a familiar feel, almost as if it’s been around forever. Not only do these guitars look like a piece of Americana, but they feel like something that has been lovingly broken in over the years. The one thing people love about my guitars is the neck work that I do. The necks play like butter…a perfectly worn-in vintage neck that just feels right.
Feedback (not the good kind!) was a problem in my first designs. I was making the bodies entirely hollow with metal tops and different things, but they were just too microphonic and would squeal and screech like crazy. So, I looked at some old arch top designs to see what they did to tame the feedback and came up with a new design that worked perfectly.
Instead of recessing the metal to make the guitar top, I decided to keep the body all wood with a solid center and add my metal in the form of steel plates and loaded pickguards that mount to the top. I’ve integrated everything—even the bridge into the steel pickguard, which mounts to the top of the guitar. The string-through solid center resonates the entire guitar body, and the sound is released through only one or two sound holes patterned in the tried-and-true F hole shape—just like an old solid block arch top or a Thinline.
How is the pattern applied?
It’s an electro etching technique where I mask off the design onto the metal, submerge it in a saltwater solution, and then run low-voltage electrical current through the steel which etches any exposed metal.
What pickups do you use?
I tried every major pickup manufacturer out there (and even wound my own), but it wasn’t until I found Rio Grande pickups out of Texas that the magic happened. With their unbelievable tone and build quality, these are simply one of the best pickups being produced in America today.
These pickups installed in the Ironhorse guitars produce warm, complex tones with harmonic overtones and sizzling leads with controllable feedback, while still retaining brightness and amazing note articulation and string clarity. It’s pure magic and a sound all its own.
What does Dax&Co. have in store for the future?
More metal guitars! We are developing many more body styles and patterns to suit all styles of players. And, of course, we will still offer our custom hand-aged, name brand guitars that people have come to expect from our shop.