An Interview with Guitar Wars

Timshel talks with deep appreciators and purveyors of San Jose's music scene: Carlos, Josiah, and Brandon of Guitar Wars

Walk along First Street, hardly a block away from Academic Coffee, and across the street from The Ritz and Guildhouse, is an oddly unusual sign protruding from the side of a building with an all glass entrance. The sign proudly reads, in a very familiar font, “Guitar Wars.” Peak inside, and it is a true sight to behold: an entire room’s walls are covered with guitars and basses, except one which is adorned with art from locals. Look down, and on a table is a 2 foot Millennium Falcon, and if you look up, on shelves beneath the ceiling, there are hundreds of pieces of Star Wars memorabilia, such as clone troopers helmets, lightsaber replicas, a statue of Yoda, and figurines of other iconic characters (Obi Wan, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, and some I could not recognize). If you come on a weekend, and put your ear close to the door, it is very likely you will hear the loud banging of drums, possibly accompanied by equally high volume guitars.

Walk inside and it is much larger than it may first appear. In addition to the main room visible from first, there is another large room in the back where they keep their acoustic guitars, ukuleles, and special electronic gear. Right beside is a practice space kitted out with a drum set and amps (which would likely be the source of the aforementioned music). From here, you can also access their other entrance on Market Street: the space takes up the entire width of the building allowing for two entrances, one on each side.

If you’ve seen this spot around, you may be foolish like I was and believe that Guitar Wars is a brand new addition to the San Jose community. In actuality, this is their third location, and they have been an key part of the local DIY music scene for over a decade, contributing a space for musicians to play, practice, purchase guitars, and meet other likeminded individuals since May 4th, 2013. They moved to their newest location in January of 2026 with a proper ribbon cutting, grand opening that had a large turnout, and even representation from the city itself.

My experience with them begins that month when I saw a flyer online for one of their hardcore shows (on January 23rd). I attended, and they had cleared out the acoustic space to make room for a large crowd and bands to play. The venue had a really great vibe and afforded a great space for people to feel comfortable moshing, dancing, nodding their head to the music, and, of course, crowd killing (in excess). A couple weeks later I made my DIY music guide, and posted about it on Tik Tok. Void Guitars (the repair shop ran by a close friend of the owner that shares a common space with Guitar Wars) left a comment mentioning the place, and we had a brief exchange on the platform. I felt inspired to reach out on their Instagram to ask if I could come by for an interview, and he said yes.

Below is the transcription of my interview with Carlos, Brandon, and Josiah, which was conducted February 7th, 2026. It is timestamped roughly every minute or so. You can download, read, or listen to the full thing below

The Interview

Timshel: [00:00:01] We are recording! So could you guys introduce yourselves?

Carlos: My name is Carlos Gascon. I’m the owner of Guitar Wars. Yeah.

Josiah: I’m Josiah. I’m the been helping out Carlos for a little while, and I’m the owner of the Void Repairs.

Timshel: And how are you two, like, related?

Josiah: So me and Brandon, his son we met when I was a sophomore in high school, and he was a freshman in high school. That was about. 14 years ago. And they used to work at a little guitar shop. They used to work at a guitar shop called Musicians Warehouse. And me and Brandon used to skate all the time, and I was like, dude, how come I never see you on Saturdays and Sundays? Like, that’s when we can skate the most. And he’s like, oh, I go to my dad’s shop and I like, help out. I was like, oh, like, what kind of shop? He’s like, oh, it’s this cool little guitar shop over by Easter. Jamal. I was like, oh, I want to check that out. Like, what the heck? I never played guitar or bass or anything or whatever. So I started going and started asking Carlos if like, how to do stuff and just kind of over time, like we used to basically like wipe down guitars, talk to customers, tune stuff up, and Carlos would pay us like 20 bucks a day. But in high school, you know, sophomore year, you’re like, oh, shit, 20 bucks. $40 for the weekend had no money. So some money was awesome. Yeah. And yeah, we’ve just been kind of working together ever since then. Ever since? Yeah, it’s 2008, I think. No, not when I started working. Well, you started working, so he started working there very early on. Okay. I only came on much later, but yeah. 2011. Yeah. Like beginning of 2011 was when I met him. Then they they closed that store, so I decided to open my own. Yeah.

Timshel: [00:02:00] Okay. So so you’re working at Musicians Warehouse, like 2008.

Carlos: To 2012, I think, four years. I can continue. I can open somewhere else do my own stuff. So we opened another shop down on Monterey Road.

Timshel: Yeah, yeah. And so you were there from. You were in the Monterey Ro location from 2012 to, like a couple months ago.

Josiah: So I think Musicians Warehouse closed at the end of 2012. Yeah. 2013. Yeah. We opened in May. Yeah. May 4th. May the 4th be with you.

Timshel: That’s a great bit.

Carlos: Yeah. We opened so we were there until last year basically. So what is it 12, 13 years. Yeah. Yeah, close to 13 years. Exactly. And then they sold the shopping center. So again we’re like all right. We had to go somewhere else. The party continues. So next location we find this spot and we we’re here now.

Timshel: Yeah Okay. So so the reason you moved was mainly because, like, the owners of the building.

Carlos: Yeah. The owners.

Josiah: [00:03:06] Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Timshel: Yeah, well, it kind of worked out. I feel like this location is really nice.

Carlos: Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah, we feel a lot more. More different. People, more musicians are in this area. Like. Yeah, the nightlife is a lot better. Obviously. Anywhere else you close at 6 or 7? Yeah, because it’s just a shopping center here. You can stay open until ten and it’s still works out.

Josiah: Yeah, people still walking through. It’s just kind of entertaining to watch. Like, yeah, the once in a while drunk person, a drunk group. Oh, what the heck is this? Yeah, they want to check out everything and it’s kind of fun to talk. It’s kind of like talking to children. So it’s like not too far off from what we do on the daily, but. Yeah. Yeah.

Timshel: One thing I want to ask, because the theme is really unique, I don’t think I, you know, I’ve never seen a, like a, I guess, sci fi themed [guitar shop]. Yeah. Where did that come from?

Carlos: I mean, I’m a big fan of sci fi and I like I love Star Wars. So I was asking around like, these guys are like, what are we going to name the store? And they’re like, I don’t know, like a lot of people name it the street or their name or or something like that, you know, something related, like San Jose Music Shop or something. And that’s kind of boring. Let’s, let’s name it something else. Let’s be unique. And like, our guitar works and they’re like, what? Guitar was just like, yeah, like Star Wars guitar.

Josiah: [00:04:30] To be honest, I hated it at first.

Carlos: He hated, a lot of people-

Josiah: A lot of people hated it at first.

Carlos: That sounds aggressive. I’m like, yeah, but.

Josiah: That was like, what do you mean? People always people always be like, “what do you mean” Guitar Wars”? like that doesn’t make sense?” Yeah, that makes sense. No Star Wars guitars kind of, you know, in that way.

Carlos: And then, you know, eventually I show him a thing like this and they’re like, oh yeah, that sounds cool. Yeah, well.

(Brandon walks by) Carlos: Wanna be in an interview?

Josiah: Wanna be jumping on this?

Brandon: Yeah give me one second.

Carlos: You want to come in? Okay.

Josiah: [00:05:02] That’s Brandon.

Carlos: That’s how. That’s how I came up with that name. Obviously, I had a lot of decoration, toys and stuff like that. So I started posting here.

Josiah: This stuff he already had.

Timshel: Yeah. You’ve had all this.

Carlos: I got this in the garage. I’m like, what am I gonna do with all this? And, like, now I get a chance to display it. Yeah, I can see collectibles like this thing, you know, stuff like that.

Timshel: Yeah. This, this. Yeah. For for the record, there’s there’s a millennium Falcon, like a huge figurine [right in front of us],

Josiah: Yeah. Like two feet long.

Timshel: Have you just been, like, collecting these, like, your whole life?

Carlos: Since basically 90s, when my son was a kid. Okay, I buy a few toys. I had a couple before, but not that many. Yeah, and when my son was a kid, I buy Star Wars. Oh, here’s a new toy for you. But we still have em, so we keep them in good shape.

Timshel: So are these, like. Like childhood toys of [Brandons]

Carlos: They were Brandon’s. I said don’t destroy em. Keep em nice and soft.

Timshel: [00:06:05] That’s really creative. Question for you [Josiah] about Void Guitars. So this, like, do you like, how did that start? Like what is “Void Guitars?” Like, what’s your intention with it?

Josiah: Well, so the way it started was I think for a while we were Guitar Wars has been growing and we’ve always kind of been doing stuff. And, you know, we were always pushing things like doing shows and then doing markets and, you know all kinds of cool stuff like that. And we really were seeing like our customer base growing quite a bit. And so the void started off as an idea to open up like a sister shop to Guitar Wars. So a secondary music store that’s like very hand in hand with Guitar Wars itself. And yeah. So the idea I got a motorcycle, I burned my leg, I was out of, I couldn’t work because I couldn’t stand on it. And so I was literally just laying in bed, like brainstorming ideas and stuff. And, you know, the, the, the core of it is like what I personally have been doing for a long time, which Carlos taught me was guitar repair. Like I wanted to orientated around that, focus more on repairs and like collecting a few guitars here and there and a few pedals that like, I felt like were special items, basically just curated stuff. Right? And it was going to be a smaller shop was the idea. And then I, you know, just planning like, oh yeah, like downtown would be a great location for something like that. You know, kind of all the reasons we moved here is kind of it started as that idea is like, yeah, downtown would be perfect. There’s nothing over here. If you look at a map of San Jose, All the music stores. They’re all on the left side of the map on the west side of San Jose. There’s not a whole lot in the middle or to the right. Yeah, or on the east side of San Jose. And downtown’s kind of a good spot because it gives access to the East side San Jose, but also is still close enough for West San Jose and South San Jose. North San Jose, right in the middle. Right. So yeah, so that was the idea. And then Carlos and Brandon messaged me. They’re like, dude, the Guitar Wars is closing. Like, it’s gonna be somebody bought the building and blah, blah, blah. Like, we’re gonna we’re gonna have to leave. And I was like, oh, like, damn. Yeah, I kind of ruins everything. But like, I thought about it and, like, was like, honestly, this is a good thing. Like, it’d be a great fresh start. And, like, maybe we can use some of the ideas I’ve been coming up with and you know, pushing it that way. And so looking at some of the spots and stuff, I was like, dude, like, these places are a little bit bigger. You know, maybe we don’t. Maybe I don’t have to open my own store, but maybe we can start off as, like a section in Guitar Wars and something Carlos has always encouraged me, even at the old locations, like, dude, open up a repair bench, just like start doing some repairs and stuff.

[00:09:11] I was like, I don’t want to like, you know, be in your way. It’s kind of, we’d have to change stuff in the old store to make it work. And I didn’t want to, you know, do all that. But with starting at a new location, we could kind of figure things out as we were building it. So it just kind of worked out perfectly. So long story short, goal is to do repairs, kind of curate some specific items that we really like. And yeah, just offer, like, really good repair services for a good price, but also like we want to do more things for like, community events. Yeah. Like driving for, you know, pet food drives and getting customers to come and volunteer with us to go to like some of the homeless shelters and stuff like that. A lot more community driven events. Not necessarily at the store itself, but like, you know, going out into the city and doing things. So yeah, that’s kind of like what our, what my goal is for, for the void is to do repairs as, like as a business and stuff and, you know, sell a couple of guitars here and there maybe. But a lot of community stuff is the focus behind it.

Carlos: [00:10:17] Yeah. We recently donated a couple guitars to a school. What school was that?

Josiah: Yeah, that was Notre Dame. The girls school.

Carlos: Donated a couple items.

Josiah: Yeah.

Josiah: They have, like, a charity auction that they’re doing to help run fund some get some funds for their art programs and stuff like that.

Carlos: Just we just want to be involved in that, you know, whatever’s happening in the area. But it is shelter. What is the shelter for the dogs, that SPCA. Yeah, we want to do a show, people. We’re gonna bring food for the dogs, and we’re gonna donate it at the at the shelter. Or blankets for dogs, toys and things like that.

Josiah: Toy drives for kids too. Not just the dogs. (laughter)

Timshel: [00:11:05] That’s really cool. I feel like you know, from what I’ve seen, like, community is like a very big part of, like, Guitar War's identity in San Jose even at your old location, you guys hosted a lot of events and shows and things. What got all of you into, I guess, like the music scene here and what kind of, like, inspired you to make that such, like, a core part of the Guitar Wars ethos?

Carlos: I always like the scene of the music especially the punk, you know? And when we opened the shop for like, hey, we should be doing shows, we should throw this. And it was completely free. No charge. No even the vendors, it was no charge for that spot. Nothing. So we we always love doing the music, and then they start playing. When they started helping me, they [Brandon and Josiah] start learning how to play. So now they’re like, all right, now you guys are visions. Now you guys get involved and now you book the bands and stuff like that. So we just keep doing it. Yeah, just just keep going and I think.

[Some people walked by from the shop and said bye]

Timshel: [00:12:19] Yeah. And growing up, how did you guys get involved into the scene here?

Brandon: Well, also, because of Him we started out another shop called Musicians Warehouse, and he was working there, and when he was working there, he’s basically like, hey, both of you, let’s start doing lessons for both of you.

Carlos: I put him in lessons. You took lessons?

Brandon: Yeah. He [Josiah] took lessons, too. Yeah. So he started doing guitar. And from there, it just never stopped. You know, that was like almost, what, 20 years ago and almost now, 15 years ago. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we as soon as, as soon as we got into the first shop, that’s when we, like I said, just got involved with music right away

Carlos: and I give him I give Josiah a guitar so he can learn how to–

Josiah: [interrupts] Hold on. He said, if you fix this guitar, (laughter) you can keep it. But it was a gift. It was a gift. And again, like, that’s like that’s like why the whole reason I do repairs is he’s like, fix this headstock. I’ll show you like how to do it, but you got to do it. And yeah, he showed me I still have that guitar. No broke. No, no, no issues with it at all. Showed me the right way and it. Yeah, I gave him a couple guitars.

Carlos: Started playing, taking lessons.

Josiah: Yeah. Can’t work at a music shop and not.

Brandon: Yeah, yeah, that’s the thing. Right. Because everybody like if you sell guitars like, hey, well, can you play something for me? And you can’t say no, right? You’re gonna look funny. So actually, right away, like I was 13, he was like 14, 15. Yeah. We learned at a very young age. And then after that, when we started selling them also and getting more involved in repairs and just doing a little bit of everything. It just it grew beyond what we could ever imagine. Honestly.

Timshel: [00:13:59] Yeah. So then I guess you know, I’m not sure about Carlos, but for you two, you started working at the, like musicians warehouse and then got into guitar.

Brandon: Yeah. That’s literally in it for the 20 bucks a day. Yeah, yeah. We used to just work the weekends just because, again, it was mom and pop shop also. So yeah, we just do whatever, sell whatever rentals, all this stuff. And that’s where we learned everything. And it’s a little by little we ended up here. Yeah, but it’s always.

Carlos: Been like a, kick it, also come and kick it and come and have fun. Yeah. But, you know, you feed them, clean the counters, clean $20 here and there. Keep it like that. That we can just relax too. We don’t we don’t have to do a lot of work. Like today we will be on the couch and we like that. We want to kick it, but we’re working. Yeah, that was just. That was fun. We we got a TV at the other shop where we can play video games, too, but I don’t know what to do right now.

Josiah: [00:15:05] Yeah, we got it set up.

Brandon: We kind of like the idea, like, don’t take yourself too serious. Yeah, yeah. Like, just have fun. Do what you love, obviously. Right. But don’t stress yourself out. Don’t kill yourself over this. Enjoy yourself and make it fun for not just you, but everybody around you.

Carlos: Everybody in the community also.

Brandon: Yeah co-workers alike. Right? Yeah. So. Yeah. So just keep it. Keep it chill and relaxed, basically. Yeah, yeah.

Carlos: Clock in and clock out

Timshel: Is there like, an experience or, like, event you guys hosted that really sticks out to you is like a highlight of, like your time at Star Wars?

Brandon: That’s a good question. I would say for at least like me, more recent. Right. Our grand opening was crazy to see all the love and support and all the people that actually genuinely care about Star Wars. Our first hardcore show we threw here was incredible. We’ve never seen that many people at once. A bunch of kids just supporting each other, helping each other out. Just like the true meaning of a community, right? Just a bunch of kids that all know each other, all go to high school. Even if they don’t go to school together. They know each other from here to Fresno, from here to S.F., so it’s just super interesting and cool to see. Like I said, the community actually really get together here and and use the hub, like how we always wanted it to be used. Yeah.

Carlos: [00:16:24] Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah.

Josiah: I think I like two. One was when we had like the first when we moved into the second Guitar Wars two. Yeah, the grey shop. We had like, a Halloween show, and it was like our the store wasn’t filled out yet, so we had a bunch of room, and that was kind of like a sneak peak into, like, what this is now. Yeah, that’s kind of why it stands out to me, because it was like we had a band called Hella Heart. Yeah, they brought out a bunch of, like, cool, like, gear and stuff, and they had pretty much like a full light show with their stuff. A smoke machine was sick, and we had a lot of people there for that one too. That was really cool because that was like, it took a long time for us to put together, and it was kind of part of opening up that new shop and seeing that come together, it was really cool. And then, like you said, the second one was like, for sure, the grand opening, like seeing how many people really cared about about the shop and like seeing, like having, like some backing from the city itself was really cool, because I don’t know about you guys, but personally, I feel like Guitar Wars felt like we were really doing everything the same, but there wasn’t a whole lot of recognition. Obviously the city didn’t care too much or anything. But, like, you know, our community was a little bit smaller, but it was like it was like a solid community. And then here, seeing that like, okay, we’re getting backing from the city and our, like, hardcore, you know, group is following us over here, even though we’re quite a bit further away and still supporting it. And now we’re seeing all these other people that are starting to to come here and show a lot of support for us, too. It’s like it’s been been very cool. So yeah, for sure, those two things. Yeah, it’s been really awesome.

Timshel: [00:18:04] You mentioned there was a second location. (laughter) So how many how many iterations of Star Wars have have there been?

Josiah: Well, there was the what we call the “green store,” and it was about like from this wall to this wall [He points to one side of the main entrance room in Guitar Wars to another side]. Okay, maybe a little bit longer, but it was narrow. That’s kind of like where Guitar Wars started tearing down the wall. Remember, there was like, at that front wall. We had to tear that down. We painted the walls neon green, almost. It looked like a green screen, basically. It was crazy. I don’t know what or why, but it was just paint we had or something.

Brandon: That’s where we came up with the name, but we didn’t quite figure out the theme of it. Yeah, the aesthetics of the vibe. There was like a couple Star Wars toys. Not nearly as many as there is. Not even 25%. Yeah, yeah. No.

Josiah: That’s true. It was just like scattered all over the place too.

Brandon: And eventually we heard that right across the street from us, one of those buildings was going to be for sale, so we jumped on right away. We went there and it was a lot bigger, so we went harder on the Star Wars decorations.

Josiah: Yeah, like decorating the floor.

Brandon: Yeah. Like the it was overdone even. (laughter) Yeah. It was, but it was cool. We made our own front desk that was like console Star Wars shaped super, like super over the top. And then eventually got bought out. So then we came here. So this is now our third shop as Guitar Wars. And with this one we saw the artistic design in it [multi colored, there’s yellow walls, green ones, its colorful]. Right when we first walked in, all these walls were painted the way you see them. We got to meet the landlord. He was basically some artist that did it all himself. And the whole building was very like artistic. A lot of like what they would say like “feng shui” right. There’s like a flowing energy to it. Yeah. So right away we were attracted to it and we got to meet the owner. He was super cool, artsy, great guy. Eventually he. He painted everything because he was having an art gallery, so he painted it all white. But he told us, like, as soon as we’re done, you know, put it back. How? When you first saw it, right when you first fell in love with it. So that’s we ended up painting every everything back to the way it was.

Josiah: The yellow, the grays, the red–

Brandon: basically three different shops for Guitar Wars. But we all started in the fourth shop called Starving or Musicians Warehouse. Yeah, yeah. So, so four different locations. But three of them were Guitar Wars. Yeah, yeah yeah. This is the third one. I will probably.

Carlos: [00:20:26] Because this was a gallery before we, we like to keep also as you can see we have art. Yeah. These are some artists that are for sale. And you can scan that code right there.

Brandon: Yeah. So we try to keep them alive. Like we know that the first Friday of the month starting in like this month [February 2026] it started. They have art gallery or art events outside. So we wanted to take advantage of that too and still keep it very artistic. Right? People that don’t necessarily play instruments, they instruments, they can still come in and like, okay, well, you obviously appreciate art. So we wanted to keep that vibe alive because we knew it was something new for this area. But yeah, total for spots. Yeah. It’s been a journey for sure. Like I said if you were to tell me ten years ago like, hey, you’ll be downtown one day you know, dealing with a whole new community and everything, like, I wouldn’t believe, you know? (laughter) Yeah, yeah, this is all pretty new to us, but it’s pretty exciting also. Yeah, yeah.

Timshel: [00:21:23] And I guess to kind of round it out if you guys have thoughts on just, like, what? Or I guess more thoughts on like, what the San Jose music community means to you and like other positive experiences you have with it and any more thoughts on how Guitar Wars is embedded [in that community]?

Carlos: Plan to be here for a long time, hopefully. I mean, most of the places that our venues, we met a lot of people, a lot of the owners of the Guild House, Different bars, we met pretty much everybody, that guy next door, oh, you know, everybody in this area are musicians. Everybody play here. Open mic or this and that. So we want to be involved in all that and keep going.

Brandon: [00:22:07] Keep going. Just continue to to do what we do and see where it goes. Again, like, I couldn’t have imagined this even five years ago. I wouldn’t have imagined that this is how different it would have been. Right. Yeah. So the idea is just to keep going and see where it takes us and see what happens. And see what? See what’s in store for the future. We know obviously it’s going to be a lot of like, again, community based, right? It’s not just hardcore, but we have like indie bands normal, you know, rock, punk, folk rappers. Everybody needs basically a safe place to express their music. And it seems like from here to San Francisco, we’re kind of the only ones that are offering this to all these kids, and it’s a safe spot to come make noise and get as loud as you can. Right. We’re downtown so we can be as loud as you want to. So that’s the good thing about us now, especially. Yeah, yeah. So we’re just excited for the future and see what happens. Yeah. Continue to support everybody. Yeah.

Josiah: [00:23:04] I think like the cool thing about San Jose’s music scene, like, is that there’s so much like, there’s so many artists and stuff in the area. And we’ve got some, like, really cool bands in San Jose, like, like hardcore alone, like, I think we’re kind of becoming like a capital for California’s hardcore scene in general. But like beyond that, like you said, like we’ve got a ton of like underground punk bands that are really cool. We’ve got a ton of rock bands in the area. You know, we meet a lot of musicians here and like, get to see them play is awesome. And like, if we can give them a little safe spot to be at. And then also like, having, like the kids come through, I think is a huge thing. Like I think everybody kind of focuses a lot on like that, like 21 and up shows. Yeah, obviously downtown San Jose’s got a ton of bars, right? So like the venues are that and there’s not that equal opportunity for the kids to have a spot. There’s a couple places like open right over on 32nd Street, I think. But you know, there’s there should be way more for the amount of kids that there are in San Jose. And how many? Not even just kids, but like people in general that maybe don’t want to be around a bar while they’re hanging out or like, just want to watch the music and stuff. I think there’s not enough of that. Like there should be a spot, you know, every three miles, there should be an all ages spot. That’s how it should be. But yeah, if we can do something to help that scene grow in any way and all the scenes in general and like, we’re gonna try to do it for sure. Yeah. Of course.

Timshel: [00:24:44] Cool. Thank you guys so much for your time. This was this was really nice. Thank you.