GCA Nashville Head Instructor Steven Mather, 31, is a San Francisco Bay area native who moved to Nashville two years ago. He’s been playing music since his teens, and he started doing minor repair work in high school while working in a local guitar shop. After enrolling in a bass program at Musicians Institute’s Hollywood location in 2006, he realized that guitar building and repair were where his true interests lay.
Before moving to Nashville to work at GCA Nashville, Steven spent time in Austin, Texas, working at Collings Guitars and in Los Angeles at boutique builder Thorn Custom Guitars. At Thorn, he did inlay work for the Fender Custom Shop and Gretsch. He says Nashville has been a great fit for him: “I felt comfortable here immediately. The luthier community here is something I hadn’t experienced before — warm and welcoming, and very tight knit.”