On a farm just north of St. Joseph, Mo., you can often find Zale Bledsoe out on the porch playing one of his guitars.
“I think each guitar has its own personality,” Bledsoe said.
He should know because he builds them.
“I’ve been building stuff kinda my whole life.”
It’s a skill he learned from his late father, Ken Bledsoe, who passed away when Zale was only 16.
“He’d let me build whatever I wanted,” Bledsoe said.
Perhaps it was that freedom that eventually led Bledsoe, now 33, to create something truly unique.
“I play guitar and I skate,” he said. “I should probably build a skateboard-guitar.”
Last year, Bledsoe built his first guitar out of old skateboards.
“Everything I build is recycled, so somebody has skated it,” he said. “It wouldn’t hold the same meaning if I grabbed ten new boards off the wall and built a guitar.”
For Bledsoe, finding a way to combine his two loves just made sense.
“It would be nice to wake up in the morning and just build guitars.”
And that’s just what he’s doing. Over the summer, Bledsoe quit his day job to open a skateboard shop in downtown St. Joe. “Skateboard Everything” is filled with new and used boards and accessories as well as clothing, artwork, records from Bledsoe’s indie record label, and, of course, his guitars.
Recently, Bledsoe started to branch out, making household items like lamps, coasters, headboards and whatever he can imagine out of skateboards.
“I just like building stuff,” he said. “I think the guitars are at the top of the list, but anytime I get the chance to create something that has a one-of-a-kind feel to it, I’m down to do that.”
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