Custom guitar shop steadily growing in Eastern Kentucky despite pandemic

LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) - Laurel County is home to a guitar shop that has been a sign of success in the middle of a pandemic.

“I still get orders month, to month, to month,” Owner David Jackson said. “Actually, when I quit my job back in May 13th, I had all my bills paid up to December right off the bat. I’m still continuing to get orders.”

DLC Custom Guitars began in 2019 and, after experiencing significant success, it became a full time job Jackson.

“Word got out, I started make sells and it got to the point where, “Alright, do I do this fulltime job where I’m already working at? Or do I do what I actually enjoy doing?” It’s obvious what I picked,” Jackson said.

So far he has custom made 15 guitars from scratch.

“I’ve made basses, I’ve made electric guitars, acoustic guitars, I’m actually getting ready to start on a ukulele for next month,” Jackson said. “It’s my first ukulele man. I don’t think I’ll ever get burned out, I have a passion for it.”

Jackson said has seen steady business recently.

“Since the pandemic started, I feel like music sales in general, have went up,” he said. “People have been in their house and, I guess, they got bored and so, “Oh, I want to learn to play an instrument.”

Jackson said he plans to keep it going.

“When you love what you do, you still work every day,” he said. “You’re actually constantly working, whether you’re in the shop, doing social media, making videos, working on orders, making orders, all that stuff.”

He hopes to someday make DLC Custom Guitars a factory business.

“Not only will it provide more jobs here in London, I feel like it will,” Jackson said. “It’ll also help out me on the map even more so. That way, I can have more guitar builds out.”

Jackson said he has a message to everyone starting their own business.

“You have to have that determination to run your business because you don’t have a boss saying, “Hey, here’s the work you’ve got for this week,” he said. “You don’t think twice about it, you just do it right? Now it’s like, oh crap, it’s all me.”

Those interested in seeing Jackson’s process, or ordering a guitar themselves, can go here.

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