May 1, 2017

Meet Aaron Brown of Town Center Music in Suwanee

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aaron Brown.

Aaron, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Town Center Music got started in 2012, when I purchased the business from my employer. Admittedly, it was a difficult time to start a retail operation, with the recession happening, and all. Add that to the fact that musical instruments are considered more of a luxury than a need, plus the ever-encroaching internet, and you get an uncertain outlook, success-wise. But I had already been doing music retail for a decade, and still I had the passion to match the experience. My team and I worked hard, made some careful (but not always correct) decisions, and we’ve just celebrated our 5-year anniversary.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We definitely struggled at times; you name it, we’ve wrestled with it. Transitioning from one management style to another, winning over old and new customers, cash flow, it’s been a learning experience all the way around. I think, though, if you’re not struggling with something, you’re probably missing something. It sounds a little fatalistic, I know, but taking your passion and trying to make a living from it is no small thing, and it deserves all the attention you can reasonably give it. With that comes a fair amount of struggle, but so far, it’s been worth every minute.

Town Center Music – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Town Center Music aims to make music makers – we sell instruments & accessories, offer lessons, and try to create an environment that allows our customers to explore their creative side. We lean hard into guitars, amps, and effects, but we also carry school band & orchestra, and home recording equipment. We’re involved in the community, booking bands for Suwanee’s Food Truck Friday events, doing our own Restring for Food canned food drives, and hosting a Suwanee Community Guitar Ensemble. But I think the thing we’re most proud of is our long-standing relationships with our customers. Guitar store employees get a bad rap like record store employees; unhelpful at best, snobbish and aloof at worst. We’ve worked really hard to surprise people in that area. We’re very cognizant of the fact that on some level, we’re selling people’s idea of cool back to them. We have to be very respectful of that, so we go to great lengths training our employees to ask questions and really listen to our customers. We also strive to carry products you won’t find in your run-of-the-mill, big box store. That takes a lot of time in research and reading, but it’s very rewarding when you plug in to some boutique, hand-built components and the passion of the player and the makers really come through.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Toad the Wet Sprocket played Suwanee Town Center last summer – they’re one of my all-time favorite bands. Like, “soundtrack to your life” type bands. That afternoon, Glen Phillips came by the store with some very specific repair needs. Our tech took great care of him, and got his guitars sounding fantastic. At the show that night, just before playing “Walk On The Ocean,” Glen gave us pretty heartfelt thanks from the stage. My feet didn’t touch the ground all the way back to my car. I was thrilled that I could help one of my musical heroes do his job better.

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