Entrepreneurship requires some degree of sacrifice, and Brandon Toney, owner of Renown Music in North Little Rock, was so set on opening his business that he sold his truck to pay for it.
“I tried and tried and tried to get loans to start a business, and I couldn’t get a bank to even pretend that they wanted to do it,” he said. “It worked out. I just really, really wanted to do it. I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me no, and I was going to find a way, one way or another, and that just happened to be what worked.”
Toney moved to Conway after graduating high school, where he worked at a music store before joining another music store called Jack’s Music.
“I loved working with my hands, and I loved guitars, so I just kind of walked in and started doing stuff, and then they started paying me, which is really nice,” he said. “I just really fell in love with working on instruments and decided to save my money and go to a luthier school and learn how to build and repair.”
After attending classes at Atlanta Guitar Works in Georgia, Toney began repairing instruments full-time, in addition to teaching guitar and accepting commissions for custom builds. Then, in 2018, he decided to start Renown Music.
“I’m from the North Little Rock/Sherwood area, and I realized that there’s no one over there doing private music lessons or a music store or repairs,” he said. “I decided I wanted to make a place that I would have liked to go to back when I was a kid.”
He added that he was “obsessed” with his guitar as a preteen and took the instrument everywhere with him. His grandfather owned a Martin that he was forbidden to touch, he said, adding that he received his guitar as a Christmas gift when he was about 12.
“My parents and everybody told me they thought I would play with it for about two weeks and put it down and never touch it again,” he said. “We’re going on, what? Twenty-plus years now?”
Renown Music provides repairs, equipment and private music lessons that include guitar, ukulele, bass, drums, piano and vocals. The store celebrated its first full year at the end of 2019, and then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
“COVID was a pretty rough year for us, but luckily I saved as much money as I could, and we just survived it. We made it through, just barely,” he said. “Once we got beyond the pandemic, things really started growing. I think people were just hungry to get out and do something, and our lesson program really grew.”
In 2021, he purchased a property in the Park Hill area of North Little Rock, and Renown Music moved from Indian Hills Shopping Center in North Little Rock to the new building last month, after renovations were completed. The move allowed Renown Music to expand further, and the business has added 40 students in the past month, Toney said.
He said the keys to teaching students are to take a relaxed approach and to simplify chords and scales to make the instruments as approachable as possible.
“I’ve had students as young as 5 or 6 years old. I’ve had people who are retired in their 50s, 60s, and I treat them all the same when they get started. Some have a better aptitude for it than others,” he said. “Be pretty easy going and try not to make it too intimidating, I think, is the easiest way to get them started.”
He said he would like to continue growing Renown Music’s lesson program, which includes about 150 students, about 30 of which are taught by Toney, who teaches ukulele and guitar. The business also helps students create bands such as Off Balance, a rock band that began by playing Van Halen covers and has performed at venues that include Vapors Live in Hot Springs and the Rev Room and Stickyz Rock ‘N’ Roll Chicken Shack in Little Rock.
“They’re fantastic,” Toney said. “I don’t think any of them can drive yet, but they’re incredible.”
Toney makes all his guitars from scratch. First, he sources the wood and other materials. Then, if the guitar has a unique shape, he makes a cardboard mockup. Next, he mills the lumber to the rough dimensions, uses a router to duplicate the templates, and then uses hand tools to finish shaping the body and neck. Other tasks include installing truss rods, making fingerboards and slotting for frets. Last, he coats the guitars in a UV finish that cures with light.
He said one of his favorite custom builds was for a man who said that when he was a child, he wanted to play guitar so badly that he would attach a cardboard tube to a cereal box and pretend. Toney made him a guitar that looked like a Cheerios box.
“It was the most different thing anyone’s ever asked me to do,” he said. “I really enjoyed it.”
In addition to making and repairing instruments and teaching students, Toney has performed as a musician. In 2014, he helped found Becoming Elephants, a progressive rock band that released an instrumental album called Vol. 1.
“It was really just to have fun,” he said. “As a musician, I’ve always had aspirations to be as successful in a music career as I can, but I think if you go about it in the first place just trying to have fun, you’ll succeed in that, at least.”
Toney said his wife, Chrissie, is also a musician. She has a doctorate in music, and she teaches piano and flute.
“I try to get her to play with me, but I can never get her to do it,” he said. “Maybe one day I’ll talk her into it.”
His advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to work hard and be as frugal as possible. Renown Music would not have survived the pandemic had he not saved money ahead of time, he added.
“Start as lean as possible,” he said. “Try not to put yourself into a lot of debt, and just set yourself up as best you can for success. I started out with no debt, which was nice, and it really takes the pressure off of you when you’re getting started.”
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