Here’s an expanded version of a feature that originated in the newspaper at Phish’s Mondegreen festival.
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“We make a few different brands of guitars here, all under the Circle Strings business,” company founder Adam Buchwald says, a few days prior to Phish’s Mondegreen festival. In addition to his renowned acoustic guitars, a couple of which are owned by Trey Anastasio, the Burlington-based luthier also has his Iris line, a less costly alternative (which was featured at Germany’s Guitar Summit in late September). After gaining renown for his acoustic instruments, Buchwald moved into creating electric guitars and recently began producing the Languedoc G4 model.
Buchwald acknowledges that all this is rather exciting given the fact that the UVM grad is also a longtime Phish fan. He acknowledges, “What’s going on right now is like a lifelong dream.”
How did you come to be a luthier?
I grew up in New York and then went to school at UVM where I studied music. Then I moved back to New York to play music and also work for my dad’s business, which was a manufacturing company. I decided I didn’t like that, so I combined music with manufacturing and started making guitars.
It began when I was in a bluegrass band in Brooklyn with a really good repair guy. At one rehearsal, my banjo fell over, the neck broke and I was devastated. He said, “Oh, that’s not a big deal. We could fix this.” Then he fixed it and it was perfect.
After I saw him do that, I knew what I needed to do that with my life. I was obsessed with instruments as a kid—guitars, mandolins, banjos—and was always tinkering with my stuff through my young adulthood. But I got to a point in my early 20s where I was working for my dad working on machines, and I hated it. I wanted to figure out something to incorporate music and instruments in my life. So since I had a factory and machines there to work on, I kind of taught myself how to build while the other guy taught me how to do repairs and make the instruments playable.
That led me to a job at Retrofret where I was fixing and restoring some of the best vintage guitars in the world. It was a huge learning experience taking apart and putting back together all these old Gibsons, Martins and Fenders—all the major brands we worked on and restored. I learned how to do things the right way and perhaps more important, I learned what not to do.
At what point did you start Circle Strings?
I started building guitars under that name while I worked at Retrofret in 2004 or 2005. Then in 2008, I moved up to Vermont and taught guitar making for two or three years. In about 2012, I opened my own shop in Burlington.
When did you first connect with the music of Phish?
I got into Phish in the early 90s. During high school I saw shows and Trey was a big inspiration for my playing. Then I went to Europe after high school and saw their ’96 tour. I met Trey in London and have a picture of meeting him. Then when he got the guitar here, I showed him the picture and we reenacted the photo of when I was 17 years old. It was pretty funny.
Since you just mentioned Trey coming in to get his guitar, how did that come to pass?
I play paddle ball with Page and I showed him a set of wood that I had held onto and was like, “I’d love to make a guitar for Trey some day.” Nothing came of it until a few months later when Page called me and said, “You know what? Trey’s birthday’s coming up. I’d really love to make him a guitar with that wood.” When he said that, my jaw dropped,
He was like, “Hopefully you can get it done by his birthday.” So we rushed to finish it. Then Trey was up in Burlington for the afternoon when Page was going to give it to him. I really wanted him to come by, but Page said, “I don’t know if he’ll have time.” Then after the guitar was delivered to the Barn by somebody, I got a call from Page saying, “Trey loves the guitar so much. He has like 15, 20 minutes, so he can stop by and thank you guys.”
They came by and we gave them a little private tour of the shop. Then they played a couple songs for us. It was a magical day.
From there, as I understand it, you began to do some repair work for him.
Yeah, he started bringing in a lot of guitars for us to repair and fix. We’ve got a Plek Machine, which is a German machine that does all the fretwork and setup for you. It does that while the guitar is under tension. There’s no way a human can do that kind of work. So it sets up the guitar and makes it playable in a way that’s better than anything out there. We did that to his acoustic and he was blown away, so he had us do it to his electrics.
Meanwhile he loved the acoustic and wrote the album [Mercy], then he wanted a backup and then he wanted another one. So it just spiraled into a nice relationship.
At what point did you start the Iris brand?
Around 2018 I was making Circle Strings guitars, but they were over five grand apiece and a friend of mine was like, “Why don’t you start a guitar line that’s a little cheaper but still something that would be cool and have a nice look.” So we started Iris, which is a nod to the old vintage guitar look and design, it just has fewer bells and whistles and the finish is a lot easier to do. The cases, the tuners, everything on it is a little less expensive, but still good. They’re nice handmade USA made guitars, they’re just not really fancy and expensive.
How did you come to make Languedoc guitars?
I got in touch with him when I moved here and wanted to see his shop. We became friendly and played golf and hung out a little bit. Then after a few years with my business growing, we started to get into making electric guitars. So I randomly called him one day and said, “I’d love to show you what we’re doing and maybe you can give us some advice or critique or input. We’d love to know what you think of this.” So he came by, he was impressed, and then he asked if I wanted to produce the G4 model on a larger scale, so that he could focus on making G2s. It was like a dream come true.
Given the span of your Phish fandom, do you have a favorite or most memorable show?
Seeing them at the Sphere with my wife when Trey brought out the acoustic we made him was probably the most memorable. My wife rarely comes to shows with me and to have her there for that was pretty amazing. She’s definitely been a huge part of this and it was nice that she was able to see it.
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Adam Buchwald on Building Acoustics for Trey Anastasio and Going Electric with Paul Languedoc – Gravitater
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