{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Road to Your Name Podcast","title":"Road To Your Name - Season 8, Episode 9: A conversation with Steve Johnson, owner of Vexed Instruments","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2637,"description":"Road to Your Name\nSeason 8, Episode 9\nGuest:  Steve Johnson — Vexed Instruments owner and Tattoo artist\nThis episode was recorded in December 2025\nEPISODE DESCRIPTION\nIn this episode, Lisa talks with Steve Johnson (who goes by Steve Haven), owner of Vexed Instruments and a tattoo artist working out of Six Nations of the Grand River. Steve builds and repairs electric guitars and basses by hand, from sanding and finishing to wiring and engraving — and he's the kind of maker who notices when a part doesn't feel right and decides to build the better version himself.\nWhat started with fixing his own guitar after a repair shop turned him down has grown into a full custom-build practice: roughly a dozen guitars built since the summer of 2024, a three-month turnaround for custom orders, and details what nobody else seems to be doing — including fretboard position markers inlaid with wampum shell. Steve also talks about his parallel life as a tattoo artist trained under Steve Hill (16 Aces) in Ohsweken, the ethics that guide who he will and won't tattoo, and the unexpected lessons learned from building a five-foot-long guitar.\nThis is a conversation about craft, patience, and what happens when you decide to just teach yourself the thing nobody else will do for you.\nWHAT WE TALK ABOUT\n- How Steve got into guitar building: a repair shop turned down his guitar for not being \"good enough\" to work on, so he taught himself instead\n- Starting with assembly before learning to build individual components from scratch, beginning in the summer of 2024\n- The full process behind an electric guitar build: sanding, painting, clear coat finishing, and wiring\n- \"Vexed,\" the name Steve engraves into each headstock and fills with epoxy so it becomes a permanent part of the instrument, rather than using a simple slide decal\n- Building guitars for musicians in the hardcore and metal scene, including his experience seeing one of his builds played live for the first time with the band Reality...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/EMAPSU_o9vetcBfJJ4OU41woZtyCGFgI7d9nIXpjEOY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9iMGM3/MjAxOGE0Njg1ZWVj/MWUxZTFkMzllNmI3/ZWQzZi5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}