Today we’d like to introduce you to Levi Adrianson.
Hi Levi, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
The focus of Firehouse Guitars has always been finding the perfect piece of gear for each player’s needs while offering honest service, industry expertise, and killer value, which is often a difficult combination to find. In 1997, Tim Adrianson, my father, founded Firehouse Guitars in a tiny storefront on Division Avenue in Grand Rapids. He is a chemist by trade and had reached a point in his career where he would have needed to go back to school for a PhD to get the job he actually wanted. Instead, he decided it was a perfect time to take a leap into a lifelong passion and try starting something of his own.
Over the next few years, he grew the business into 5 brick-and-mortar locations across West Michigan and in the metro Atlanta area. While guitars/basses, amps, and effects pedals certainly is the core of the business, we carry all the top brands in keyboards, drums, live sound, and pro audio. In 2003, GearTree was launched as the e-commerce arm of the business, starting with eBay. We jumped on as early-adopters to Amazon the following year, which propelled the business forward for the next decade. In 2013, GearTree was one of the first shops to join Reverb.com, a music-specific 3rd party marketplace that has revolutionized the industry, and we continue to be one of the top 5 Reverb shops on an annual basis.
Caleb (my brother) and I grew up in the business, always helping with various tasks and shipping out online orders during school breaks. After spending 4 years in the CPA world post-college, I rejoined Tim and Caleb in 2019 as an owner-operator. Just in time for our 25th anniversary in 2022, we purchased an existing 38,000 sqft warehouse for GearTree e-com operations and constructed a 18,000 sqft state-of-the-art facility for new Firehouse Guitars and Great Lakes Outpost (sister-company) storefronts, 12 lesson rooms, a repair shop with a Plek machine, and offices. We took the construction project as an opportunity to dream up and implement innovation in a fresh, modern musical instrument showroom built for today’s players. It is always a joy watching people walk in for the first time and seeing their faces as they take in the 1,000 guitars shining on the bright white brick walls for electrics and the Michigan-sourced wormy maple walls in the acoustic room. The new space was built with community events in mind, and we have hosted clinics and meet & greets for artists such as Zach Myers (Shinedown), JB Brubaker (August Burns Red), Jason Richardson, Gregg Bissonette, Dave Weckl, Reb Beach, Bill Kelliher/Brann Dailor (Mastadon), Aaron Marshall (Intervals), Pete Thorn, Jared James Nichols, Andy Wood, and many others.
The move also brought the Firehouse Guitars retail floor and the GearTree warehouse under one roof for the first time, allowing for quicker restocking and offering our local shoppers immediate accessibility to GearTree’s nationally competitive instrument inventory of over 15,000 products. Today, Firehouse Guitars and GearTree remain family-run, combining local trust, national influence, and a shared passion for serving musicians to get more gear in more hands at every level!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As with most businesses, the biggest challenge is that nothing ever stays the same for long. As soon as you feel you’ve got one area of the business figured out, something else changes (IE. Breaks) that requires problem solving and a new solution. Being a 3rd party marketplace specialist, any time that Amazon/Reverb/eBay/Walmart/etc. experience large internal shifts, we are forced to develop to their new requirements, often in an extremely short timeframe.
Although we would argue that music and the joy it brings is a necessity, the reality is that passion purchases fit the “wants” category and thus fluctuate depending on the current economy. That being said, we have survived Y2K, the Great Recession/housing crash, COVID pandemic, and other smaller drops in between by being flexible, creative, and agile in how we respond.
While we hold our own in the national conversation, we are very much a small, family business. Chasing opportunities to grow the business has often come with challenges of scaling responsibly and finding the right team members interested in growing together with us (our average tenure is over a decade long).
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
What musicians have come to know and love about both Firehouse Guitars and GearTree is a down-to-earth, unpressured shopping experience where their needs always come before a sale, and once a sale is imminent, knowing that it’s going to be a quick and smooth transaction. Our nightmare is someone walking out a music shop’s door with the wrong gear for what they’re trying to play, especially if it leads to them giving it up. Our mentality has always been to treat people like family and whether they spend $1 or $10,000, to ensure they get exactly what they need to push them further in their musical journey.
We are extremely proud of both the Firehouse Guitars retail facility and the GearTree e-commerce reach!
Firehouse Guitars
– The local community impact we have been able to have in the new facility is definitely at the top of our list. Dedicating thousands of sqft of new construction to lesson and repair rooms was a big investment, but with over 400 students and growing, we are proud to have the next generation of musicians developing here. The clinic, meet & greet, and other free community events previously described is another of our personal favorites that drives passion for music here in West Michigan.
– Another large investment, we have one of the only Plek machines in Michigan, a CNC robot capable of guitar repairs and adjustments down to 3/10,000th of an inch. Combining a machine capable of that kind of precision with our 5 talented technicians allows us to accurately and efficiently repair/setup customer gear and get them back playing faster.
– Our kiosk system on the store floor is extremely unique. The kiosk shows all inventory both on the retail floor and out back in the GearTree warehouse. While trying out items on the floor, musicians can view all other colors, pickup configurations, etc. that are available, and a Firehouse retail associate can grab it for them in seconds. We have 1,000 guitars/basses, hundreds of effect pedals, and dozens of amps, keyboards, drum kits, etc. out on the retail floor, but we have 10x more out back in the GearTree warehouse that the local community has immediate access to through the combined power of our retail/e-com facility!
– I briefly mentioned it earlier, but our average length of tenure is over 10 years. We aren’t a revolving wheel where customers never know who they’re going to have to deal with on this visit. The community knows the entire Firehouse retail team well, has inside jokes with each of them, and honestly experiences an extension of the family atmosphere through them.
GearTree
– We have custom developed our entire ERP system and websites. The technology we have built is one of the only reasons we as a small business have been able to “play with the big boys” on Amazon, Reverb, eBay, etc. and its scalability is definitely our biggest advantage.
– We have incredibly strong relationships with all the music manufacturers. To go from a “nobody” in the early 2000s to someone that people at the NAMM show go “Oh yeah, the GearTree guys are awesome!” has been an fantastic journey. One of Tim’s go-to descriptions of the business is “Big enough to matter, small enough to care.” We have grown to the size where we actually have a say in what’s happening within the music industry, but we are also still small enough that manufacturers, carriers, individual customers, and other parties are getting personal touchpoints with us and our team.
– We take our “More Gear For Less” slogan very seriously. If we negotiate special bulk deals with the manufacturers, we pass those savings directly along to our buyers. We get feedback all the time from musicians who say they would have only been able to afford a guitar but were able to get the guitar, a pedal they wanted, and money towards an amp for the same price through us. We personally interpret More Gear For Less as “More Gear In More Hands Making Music” and that’s what it’s all about for us.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Over the years, our relationships with the music manufacturers, ranging from regional managers up to C-Suite executives, has been the biggest key. Since they see the manufacturing side of things as well as meet frequently with dozens of dealers like us, they often have insightful industry knowledge to share. Through annual industry trade shows like the NAMM Show and dealer-specific events, we have also gotten to know other sellers across the country, and it is always interesting to hear how we each take different approaches to the same problem/situation.
Pricing:
- Plek Guitar Setup – $250
- Plek Guitar Scan – $50 (can apply to repair quote if needed)
- Basic or Complete Guitar Setup – $50-100
- Half-hour private lesson – $25 / Full-hour private lesson – $50
- Full-hour group less – $20
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.firehouseguitars.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firehouseguitars
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FirehouseGuitarsGrandville
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirehouseGuitarsGrandville
- Other: https://www.geartree.com/
