Bezard Guitars: “The team I work with is full of brilliant minds”

In our Luthier Interview Series we dive into the world of electric guitar craftsmanship with the experts who bring these instruments to life. This time we feature an interview with Will Bezard from Bezard Guitars.

Hailing from Big Rapids, Michigan, Bezard Guitars makes exclusive instruments with a distinct design.

In this interview, Will talks at length about his art and craftsmanship.

Let’s dive in!

What inspired you to turn your love for playing guitar into a career in lutherie?

Oddly enough, it was a Myers-Briggs personality-based career placement test that I took during my third attempt at college. I was studying welding at a local community college, feeling lost and uninspired when my mother suggested I take the test.

One of the results that suited my personality was “instrument repair.” At 21 years old, I had never considered that a viable career path. So, I jumped into it blindly, with zero previous experience!

How did your experience at the Galloup School of Lutherie change your perspective on guitar making?

It was at the Galloup School that I was first exposed to boutique flat-top acoustic guitars. Before this, I was totally uninterested in acoustic guitars.

But after completing my Galloup Student Fingerstyle guitar—a precisely voiced and intonated flat-top—I began to understand what a flat-top guitar could truly be.

I was blown away by how consistent that guitar’s tone and response were. To this day, it is the only student guitar I have kept!

Can you share a memorable experience from your time working with Rick Turner?

Oh man… There are so many! My mentors in lutherie have been like distant, goofy, guitar uncles. Rick epitomizes that for me.

There was never a dull moment in that shop, and the six years I spent there were filled with unforgettable experiences. From handling, repairing, and recreating significant instruments from Rick’s past to witnessing his ornery genius daily, to creating genuinely bespoke instruments for his clients, it’s hard to choose just one story.

A tale I often share is the time Rick trained me on how to spray polyester on guitars. He explained that he sometimes liked to add a little extra cobalt (one part of the catalyst that hardens the polyester) to shorten the drying time.

However, he used the same vial to measure the cobalt and the MEKP-9, which is the other half of the catalyst mixture. Needless to say, the vial caught on fire and popped like a firework in the booth right in the middle of spraying. We were lucky the shop didn’t burn down that day!

How has your background in playing guitar influenced your approach to building instruments?

Since my teens, I’ve been obsessed with underground, technical genres of metal music and have spent most of my life attempting to keep up with the players I idolize.

I like to think that the essence of this music influences how I work, which tends to be fast, somewhat intense, and very precise.

That said, I pride myself on being an eclectic listener and do my best to appreciate any music that features the guitar as a main instrument.

My experiences playing live music have informed me about what’s important to a touring musician. When I talk to them about their needs, I feel I can relate fairly easily, regardless of what type of musician they are.

When you can speak their language, you can get to the desired end product much more efficiently.

What aspects of guitar making are most challenging and rewarding?

I would say the design process, particularly as it relates to doing inlay. When I design something, it’s always in a CAD program, and since I never bother to take the time to develop a render of the project, its final appearance is confined to my imagination until it is complete.

I know what it will look like, but seeing it finished is always so gratifying. Developing a process to execute said inlay, especially with a CNC machine, is always a serious challenge as well.

How do you balance the functional needs of players with aesthetic and artistic considerations in your guitars?

By simply placing functional needs first. The great Louis Sullivan once said, ‘Form follows function’, and I take that to heart. I have found that more often than not, if there is a specific functional need, the form will be informed by that need.

Any guitar that I design is always a guitar first, art second. This is where the inspiration will come from. For instance, any time I am drawing a new peghead design, I start with the path of the strings and the vertical spacing of the tuners.

I lay out the tuners and offset lines about one half inch from their position. Then, I have much less space in which I must be creative. The function side of things can narrow it down for me as the designer and give me a framework to work within.

Can you describe your process for making guitars more wear-resistant and hazard-proof?

One can only take this so far, but as standard, I reinforce every neck with as much carbon fiber as is reasonable. In addition, I glue every joint that won’t need to come apart later for repair with marine-grade epoxy.

I also seal the entire guitar, including the fretboard, with that same epoxy before applying a polyester top coat on every exposed area of wood.

My theory is that by using the strongest available finishes, I am preventing the wood’s exchange of moisture with the environment as much as possible. Polyester, of course, is a resilient top coat material as well.

What innovations or unique features set Bezard Guitars apart from other boutique manufacturers?

At this point, I am not aware of another boutique maker utilizing both CNC and PLEK to the degree that I do with my instruments. I view these machines as just another tool in my arsenal, and I aspire to use them as much as I can to achieve the highest degree of precision where it matters.

I also use Bryan Galloup and Tom Nania’s research in material sciences as it pertains to guitars to inform my building process.

While these insights are often associated with acoustic instruments, I am convinced that I will find necessary applications for electric instruments as well – not to control ‘tone’ through the materials.

But to control the behavior of the string, which ultimately influences the signal generated by the pickups.

How has your return to the Galloup School of Lutherie as an instructor influenced your own guitar-making techniques?

Wow. What a great question. The Galloup School constantly inspires me through interactions with brand-new minds and leaders in our industry.

We teach students ranging from 17 to 74 years old, and we regularly engage with industry leaders through various projects and seminars like the Northwoods Seminar.

The team I work with is also full of brilliant minds with impressive work ethics. All of these factors prevent me from becoming stagnant or comfortable for too long.

I’m certain that I wouldn’t have progressed as much as I have if I were working on my own, and I’m grateful for this opportunity!

What advice would you give aspiring luthiers or guitar enthusiasts looking to enter the field?

I tell my students to be prepared to work harder than they’ve ever worked in their lives and not to be discouraged. As creators, we often tend to be incredibly hard on ourselves.

I’ve found that it’s important to just finish the guitar and move on to the next one. In my experience, completing more work has increased my skills much faster than agonizing over perfecting every minute detail of a build.

I often see my students feeling crushed after completing their first guitar, but I remind them that it is their first guitar. It’s a marker of their progress and does not define them.

How do you see the future of guitar making evolving, and what role do you hope Bezard Guitars will play?

Well, predicting the future of anything is very difficult. I am but a humble maker and I simply make things which I enjoy.

With the advent of CNC machinery becoming more and more accessible, I wager that in the next five years we will even see more boutique operations gaining relevance on the world stage, perhaps even punching well above their weight class.

I hope that my brand can be an example of how far an individual can take these new technologies to inform their design and production process.

Can you share a story about a particularly meaningful guitar you’ve built or a special connection you’ve made with a customer?

The most meaningful guitar I’ve built so far is one I made for Karl Sanders of Nile. I’ve been a huge fan of his work since I was about fifteen.

Even before attending the Galloup School, I would tell my friends that I would one day make a guitar for him. It was an incredibly valuable experience that taught me so much about making a guitar to fit a player’s specific needs.

I can genuinely say it was a collaboration between the two of us, and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

How do you stay inspired and continue to innovate in your guitar designs?

Two things inspire me to push forward the most: seeing musicians perform live and attending guitar shows. Seeing other creative people succeed and do what they love is infectious.

If I’m ever in a funk, a show never fails to pull me out of it and get my head back into the shop.

What role does sustainability play in your guitar-making process?

Sustainability is important, though I’ll say that I plan to keep my production numbers low throughout my career. That fact alone helps keep what I’m doing sustainable.

Beyond that, I don’t discriminate in terms of the woods I use, and when I choose a piece, I use all of it. For decorative veneers, I start with an 8/4 billet of whatever wood I’m using, which is why I always do a subsequent bookmatch on the front and back of the guitar.

The entire piece ends up being used, save for a few small scraps. I also avoid using shell or bone. Inlay and nut materials for me are often resin, metals, or plastic.

Not only do I prefer their look over traditional materials, but they are more sustainable and less wasteful. I also try to be as opportunistic as I can, often tweaking a design slightly to recycle or reuse materials that are around the shop.

How has your understanding of wood and tonewoods developed throughout your career?

Oh boy. Few words are as controversial as ‘tonewood’, especially when discussing electric guitars. I’ll say this: Ultimately, if we want to control the response of the guitar’s components, what we’re looking to control is its density and stiffness.

The species of wood is kind of irrelevant in that regard when we’re talking electric guitars, although each species tends to have a general stiffness-to-density ratio that is fairly consistent.

This is something I am still exploring and learning about daily, but what I’ve said encapsulates my understanding at this moment in time.

Can you describe a typical day in your workshop?

A typical day at the shop always starts with identifying and fulfilling the needs of my students. That is my primary function in the building.

Whether it’s prepping materials for them or preparing a lesson for that day, it always comes first. After that, I look ahead for extra time where I can briefly step away and get the ball rolling on the various projects I have.

(Which are many considering they come from myself, the school, Bryan, and the handful of people whom I make parts for on the CNC router).

The Monday to Friday 8-5 workday is defined by this. When the students leave for the day, I typically spend a few more hours at the shop making more progress, but it’s not unusual for me to stay at the shop for a total of fifteen hours at least a few days a week.

Sometimes I come in on the weekends as well, but I’ve found that just hitting it hard throughout the week gets plenty of things done, allowing me to spend a little free time recharging on the weekend.

What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned from your journey in lutherie so far?

That would be ‘knowing when to say no’. I had an opportunity to do an incredible project for a prolific player while working with Rick.

In hindsight, if I had been honest with myself, it was just too much to take on, and I should have declined. In the end, the project never got off the ground. It was a major lesson in humility, and I keep it in mind when discussing future projects today.

How do you approach collaborations with musicians to create custom instruments?

Rick would tell me to simply ‘give them what they want’. Now, I follow this advice within reason. There are times when a player’s request might be unrealistic, and I see it as my job to filter these ideas into something practical that will fulfill their needs.

What are your thoughts on combining traditional craftsmanship with modern technology in guitar making?

You simply cannot have one without the other. Tradition informs innovation. I’ve found that the more I understand traditional techniques, the more creative I can be when applying new technologies.

Besides, when you make a mistake that you can’t fix with a CNC machine, you have to rely on your hand skills.

How do you see Bezard Guitars contributing to the legacy and evolution of the electric guitar?

I understand that in the end, my contributions and how they’re perceived are not entirely up to me. The community decides those things.

I do, however, hope to do for modern metal and fusion players what Alembic did for jam bands. I want my guitars to exist in a context where there are no boundaries – cutting-edge technology focused through an in-depth understanding of instrument-making tradition, fueling functional and aesthetic advancements for players who are also on the cutting edge of their respective genres.

I would like to make guitars for people who aren’t professional musicians as well, of course. Instruments as a family heirloom is something that I appreciate a great deal.