Brian Bonds’ name will be familiar to Florida Georgia Line fans — he played guitar and was musical director for the Nashville-based country group for five years.
Now an in-demand Nashville session player and producer, Brian has joined the Guitar Craft Academy Nashville faculty as a guitar instructor, working with students to improve their playing chops.
“It’s been a blast,” he says.
“The thing I like is figuring out where they’re at as guitar players and where they want to go, and building the course around that. What works for one person might not work for another.”
Bonds has lived in Nashville since 2006, when he moved here from Atlanta to pursue music. He soon started landing prestigious gigs with artists including Chely Wright, Love and Theft and Chase Rice, eventually joining Florida Georgia Line while the band was still working to gain a following. “I rode that wave all the way up, which was fun —I went from touring in the back of a Tahoe for five bucks a day to riding in jets.”
Bonds amicably parted ways with Florida Georgia Line in 2014, the same year he became a father, so that he could spend more time with his family. He now has three sons, all named after his favorite guitar players — Hendrix, Halen and Abbott.
“I haven’t slept in five years,” he says with a laugh. “When you have kids, it’s the same as being on tour. There’s still whining at 2 in the morning, the people whining are just younger now.”