Jared James Nichols might have been labeled as “one of the true guitar heroes of our generation” by Youtuber Music Is Win – AKA Tyler Larson – but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to the odd guitar gaffe.
The blues rock ace recalled some of those gaffes in a recent interview hosted by Larson, during which he reflected on how a trip to Guitar Center when he was a youngster almost ended in utter disaster when he attempted to play a high-end electric guitar.
“I used to get dropped off by my mum and they knew I was coming, like, 'Oh it's that kid again,'” he recalls of his trips to the guitar store. “I think I was about 15, right when I first started playing. I would try every guitar on the wall – the good, the bad, the ugly. I had no problem grabbing expensive custom shops!”
One day, a Flying V caught his eye on the very top rack of the store. He had to play it.
“No one would help me after a while because they knew I wasn't gonna buy anything,” Nichols continues. “There was a small amp and I'm like, 'You know what, I'll just put a foot on the amp.'
“But I lost my footing with the guitar off the hook, had it come down on my other foot... I totally rolled my ankle and the Flying V hits the ground.”
The young guitarist feared the worst: “No one saw it. I get up thinking, 'I've probably broken the guitar, I'm gonna have to pay for it,' and I couldn't believe it – it was fine. I remember when my mum picked me up and I'm walking on one leg, she asked me what had happened and I said, ‘I don’t wanna talk about it.’”
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While it may have been one of his first musical mishaps, it wouldn't be his last – the guitarist was forced to cancel shows in 2021 after breaking his arm picking up a roadcase.
Nichols does have plenty of fond guitar store memories, though. Before he was assaulted by the Flying V, Nichols took lessons at Cashmir Music in Mukwonago, Wisconsin, where he got his first guitar: a Washburn X Series.
“I had the guitar for two weeks and it kept breaking strings and wouldn't stay in tune, so I went into the store for my lesson and looked on the wall and there was a Danelectro Hodad. I remember seeing Jimmy Page on How The West Was Won, so I see the guitar thinking, 'I'm never gonna be able to afford that.'”
After watching him play the guitar for over an hour, and learning that he didn't have the money to buy his dream Danelectro, the store owner offered Nichols a deal.
“'I tell you what,'” Nichols recalls him saying. “'We'll take your old guitar back, and if every time you come here for your lesson you take out the trash and clean up a little bit, you can have that guitar.’
“I still thank him for that because that was a huge moment. When I got home and I had that guitar, it was up to me. It went from one night not wanting to play to just looking at [the guitar] like, 'That's how you make all the music; that's the key.'”
In an increasingly digitized age, stories like these highlight the value and sense of community that physical guitar stores bring.
