Aaron Smiley started playing the guitar in early high school, after becoming enamored with the instrument as a young child. Attending Bryan Galloup's School of Guitar Building and Repair fresh out of high school, Aaron was quickly employed by Guitar Center as a repair technician for a few years. After meeting StewMac employees at a luthier convention, Aaron was soon employed as a Technical Advisor for Stewart MacDonald. During his time there, Aaron wrote scripts for StewMac videos, performed quality control, and participated in R&D meetings for new tools and products. He also worked at Dan Erlewine’s shop part time repairing guitars and apprenticing under Dan. Around the time of the 2020 pandemic, Aaron moved back to Texas to be closer to family, and has since started repairing guitars in his own shop, here in Austin.

When Aaron isn’t in the shop working on stringed instruments, he is usually spending time with his dog, Marty McFly, or co-writing music for his band, Vinyl Beaches.