There’s a famous saying by Alexander Graham Bell – “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Music has opened many doors for Frank Gross, and in 2011 when the door shut on the promise of a record deal for a band he was in, another opened – one leading home, to West Seattle, to Thunder Road Guitars.
“Thunder Road Guitars was born in the fall of 2011 as I was closing the door to playing music professionally,” recalls Gross, owner of Thunder Road Guitars. “I had moved from Seattle to L.A. earlier that year with a band I was playing guitar in. With promise of a record deal and tours the move seemed like a fool-proof plan. After months and months of being put through the ringer and eventually being dropped from our label before we even recorded our album I knew it was time to put my energy into something new and fresh. I have been playing in bands since I was 12 years old and have been fortunate enough to have records released, tour the world, and have a blast doing so. I guess I just knew the time had come to move on to something else. In between tours I always worked in music stores around Seattle and acquired quite the little guitar collection. I’ve always loved vintage instruments. At 25, and just moving back from L.A. with not a penny to my name I put together a tight business plan and took out loans from my generous in-laws, my wife, and brother to start Thunder Road Guitars… Despite West Seattle being physically separated from Seattle proper by a bridge we have quite a large amount of professional musicians as well as hobbyists that call West Seattle home. Growing up here I was always surprised that West Seattle didn’t have its own guitar shop.”
In January of 2012, Gross launched their online-only guitar shop with a limited supply of guitars and amps. For about eight months, Gross worked tirelessly, forgoing pay and investing every penny of profit back into the business. Then, later that year, he took a big leap. His once internet-only guitar retailer got its first brick and mortar location, 3916 California Avenue. Since then, Thunder Road Guitars has gone on to sell hundreds and hundred of guitars and amplifiers to numerous clients in places all over the world, including some you may recognize – Pete Townshend, Joe Bonamassa, Mike McCready, Bill Frisell, and Joe Satriani. “We primarily focus on a handpicked selection of vintage and used electric guitars, amplifiers, and flat top acoustics – established brands such as Fender, Gibson, Gretsch and Rickenbacker, as well as ‘60s oddballs like Eko, Silvertone, Harmony, and Teisco. In regards to pedals we carry Catalinbread, Earthquaker Devices, JHS, Walrus Audio, Fuzzrocious, Malekko, Emerson Custom, and Electro Harmonix,” says Gross. “We plan to slightly expand to carry a few new brands in the future.”
As the company grew, Gross realized they would need more space. “Our current location is 825 square foot with zero storage,” he says. “We have been pretty creative with how to manage the space we do have, but we are at a point now where we have literally no room. I knew when I moved into our 3916 location that it would be a stepping-stone and it truly has. It helped us get established as brick and mortar business and not just an Internet dealer. It has also helped grow our inventory substantially as well as our gross sales. The new location will be just about three times the size of our current store.” The new location, opening in the end of June, is 4736 California Avenue, a place that holds some real sentimental value for Gross. “When I was a kid the 4736 location was a print shop named Liberty Bell Printing,” explains Gross. “At the age of 12 I started a band with my best friend. Neither of us could really play well, but we wanted to have a band and play loud punk rock. After a year of making noise in the basement my father, who got us both into music, offered to pay for a day of studio time in a professional studio in Seattle. When it came time to print the music we did it completely DIY, burning our own CDs and printing the artwork at Liberty Bell. After all these years, playing in bands and touring, working in music stores, and eventually starting my own business, music has brought me back to that building.”
With the new location comes a new partnership with Chad Beeler of The Bass Shop. “I’ve known Chad for about 10 years,” says Gross. “He co-founded Bass Northwest also here in Seattle, which is one of the national leaders in bass guitars and amplifiers. He also lives in West Seattle and has been interested in Thunder Road since the beginning. He currently is running The Bass Shop, which is an Internet-based used and vintage site, similar to what we were doing early on. When the time came to expand into a larger space partnering with Chad seemed like a great move considering that his focus is on bass guitars, whereas our focus is electric and acoustic guitars and amplifiers. In the new store Chad will handle all bass-oriented sales and The Bass Shop will operate inside the new Thunder Road.”
Gross, his store manager Dan Miles, and guitar tech Sam Tyner are pleased to have some room to breathe in the new location. “Well, we absolutely are going to have more room and a good amount of space to fill,” he says. “Layout wise, it will be similar to the space we are in now where we try and keep a clutter free and open floor-plan with a minimalistic look. I’ve always been a fan of less being more. I mean, who wants to walk into a music store filled to the brim with broken, dirty, and out of tune guitars? We try to do the opposite of that, having top notch and clean top notch inventory with not a lot of filler or fluff… Our target demographic is everyone from the avid collector to the gigging musician. We try and keep a solid selection of guitars and amps in the $800-$5000 range and everything from collector clean to player’s grade examples. We want people to use the gear they buy from us.”
