Music :

I could have been around 10-11 years old when I discovered my dad’s old reel to reel Tesla Sonet and managed to push play. I remember I had goose bumps all over my body. I have never felt so taken and borderline possessed...Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley...later on stealing my sister’s Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin...I was lost to music forever. 

          First guitar :

When I was a teenager I picked up the same bass I used to mess up as a kid and started to play and formed my first bands. When I wanted to play electric guitar I decided to make one myself. I was 15 years old. I already loved Slayer so the decision was easy...I will do the Warlock. I took the picture of Kerry King from a magazine I had to make a pantograph to properly scale it. I took my dad’s old vintage and valued F-hole Epiphone Acoustic and broke it to get the neck for my project. I had plywood cut by a carpenter into the shape of a BC Rich Warlock. I finished the project and it actually played fairly OK...for a noise core.

          New Life :

I will skip about 10 years in which the communism fell, I started recording studio Megasound, left my country and completely gave everything up in order just to merely survive here in the US. When I got my feet just barely back on the ground and my dreams of a new professional recording studio have been shattered, then one day, I decided to get myself a bass guitar yet again...just to jam with. Soon thereafter I started collecting and saving guitars, basses, old, new, vintage, long scale baritones you name it and I most likely had it. I started customizing the pickups, learning electronics, materials, adding stickers, reselling. But it still was not enough to satisfy me and my natural sense of creativity and endless imagination. I wanted to be different I wanted to be unique from the rest and to be able to express all the beauty I have been absorbing throughout my life.     

          Steampunk :

My favorite book author and writer when I was a child has always been Jules Verne. Then one day I stumbled upon a SteamPunk goggles and a gun. I researched it, I immersed myself in it, I had the same goose bumps like once before. I knew immediately that this is what I wanted to do...

          SPC :

So here I am today. True guitar enthusiast taken back into the Victorian era of industrial future-past. Age and a place full of steam engines, pressure gauges, gears, rivets, copper, brass, aluminum and beauty. Mechanical dreamland that will never be out of fashion. Because it’s been long gone...or never even existed in the first place. I am dedicated to create unique, one of a kind designs to my instruments. Welcome to my mysterious world of SteamPunk Custom Guitars.

Each instrument is carefully selected from all the available models and manufacturers out there today or in the past. If it existed I can most likely get it. Then it’s designed and handcrafted by me. I can also work on your own idea or a dream that I can somewhat relate my art with. I don’t use any high tech tools, lasers or computerized machinery except Oliver Intellicarve. I put my sweat, blood, tears and my rebel soul in them instead. I do my own painting, etching, casting, engraving with my hands. It pays off. Everything involved when making my custom guitars I do with a lot of love and unspeakable passion. The models take anywhere between 20-60 hours of workshop. They are all unique, one of a kind, original pieces and most importantly fully playable upgraded instruments. 

                                                                                                      

SPC Guitars & Ladislav "Larry" Barta