This year at our 2025 annual NW Flatpick Camp we invited instructor Dillon Hodges to come to the Pacific Northwest. He is long time friends with Tim May who was also in attendance along with Chris Luquette rounding out this years camp teachers.
We host our NW camp once a year inviting instructors to enjoy the town of Sisters and our small group size for teaching. Past instructors include Chris Luquette, Tim May, Joe Suskind, Dan Miller, Dale Adkins, Jack Tuttle and Keith Yoder. Dillon being a left handed player (which is a great mirror for teaching) plays a Thompson D-12 Mahogany/Adirondack spruce top with a beautiful Norman Blake sunburst and slotted headstock.
Dillon has been a guitar teacher for many years, but mostly with individual students. We had 16 intermediate level campers and he said it was great to help improve their skills by teaching high cords, cord melodies and more advanced techniques. Having retirees and professionals carving out time dedicated to their flatpicking passion and working so hard was inspiring. Dillon expressed how as guitar professionals it does become a job and sometimes less of a passion (like many jobs) so it is good to find inspiration. When we spoke recently he mentioned he decided to take a few more gigs in and around Muscle Shoals to carve out time for the passion part of playing not just the job.
Dillon grew up in Florence – “The Shoals” area of Alabama – in the heart of Muscle Shoals music country. He has been playing from a young age and participated in many competitions. In 2002, at 13, he competed in the Smithville Fiddler’s Jamboree – he won the kids guitar competition, but also entered the adult category where he made the top 3…even though kids could enter the adult competition it was more out of including them, the judges were surprised at the talent he showed. They ultimately disqualified him for being too young, which was an unpopular decision with the crowds. All was not lost because Gibson was a sponsor of the Jamboree and the rep offered up a guitar. Days later Dillon and his dad ventured north to Nashville where they waited and waited at Gibson for the rep to show up. Another employee, Dave Harvey, saw Dillon upset and disappointed because the rep didn’t appear and took a liking to him. He decided to offer Dillon a chance to sit in with his band, Radiola, at The famous Station Inn that night. Tim May was part of this band and was a bit taken a back how causally this young person confidently joined in. At just 14 Dillon was ready to perform. After the show Tim was won over and decided to invest some time in helping Dillon improve his chops and they have been friends ever since.
Tim May was and is a judge at the Winfield Flatpick Competition that takes place at The Walnut Valley Festival in Kansas. In 2005 Dillon started to train with Tim – driving from Florence to Nashville for flatpicking lessons continuing to refine his arrangements into 2006 and 2007 Tim decided in 2007 to recuse himself as a judge so that Dillon could enter the competition, which Dillon subsequently won at the young age of 17 (2nd youngest at the time). Five of the competing players had won previously so it was stiff competition. He picked the Collings Winfield Edition, which of course, was a right handed guitar. Thanks to Jim at Mass Street Music he bought it from him and Collings made a left hand hand verison.
Dillon’s stage name over the years has been Firekid so I asked him why that name and we had a great chat about his career. Firekid was a name coined in 2013 by celebrated producer Sam Hollander once when he asked how Dillon got into bluegrass – he said when he was 11 he got into flatpicking at bluegrass jams and local festivals. First time he went to a jam an old man flatpicker in his area, Billy Craft, walked up with his guitar and asked what song Dillon would like to play, “Whiskey before Breakfast” was the answer. After the song, Billy said “this kid is on fire” so Sam thought that was a good band name – Firekid.
His craft as a singer songwriter with guitar chops gave forth his first album in 2013 titled “Rumspringa” with a mix of his bluegrass background, love of Americana music, and elements of contemporary indie electronic and pop – one of my favorite songs is called Movin’ On.
His next collaboration in 2015 was with Sam Hollander debuted their 1st album from Atlantic records “Firekid” and went on tour. Here is one of the songs off the album – Magic Mountain.
In 2019 he worked on this 2nd record with producer Jay Joyce and released an album on Warner Chapel in the middle of the pandemic called “Muscle Shoals Metaphysical“ with his wife Heidi Feek. While in lockdown they started to stream on Twitch which lasted for 3 years. Here is a link to more info on their projects together – https://tedxwilsonpark.com/firekid – here is their Tedx talk called The Power of the folk process.
Since 2015 Dillon has worked for Reconnecting Roots, a PBS series which is devoted to sharing stories that illuminate the past and guide us forward. It explores the greatness of America, tracing the roots of progress from then to now – and how hosted by Gabe McCauley. It uses music from the past that embodies history by reinterpreting the music to bridge the generational gaps.
Dillon has been writing music since the 1st Season growing with the company each year. In Season 2 he became the music producer with his wife, Heidi Feek as the songwriter and Mandy McCauley as the overall music supervisor. At the end of the show Dillon, Heidi and Mandy rework a public domain song borrowing from the past to make a new song. In 2024 for Season 3 they won an Emmy for Outstanding original song. Redwing, Fire on the Mountain, John Henry, Keep on the Sunnyside… are some of the traditional folk music they are inspired by. Season 5 has just wrapped produced with the help of Dan Tyminski – one of their more challenging tasks was to find music that fit with an episode on police reform and so they picked Little Sadie! Check out the songs they have recorded over the seasons of this interesting and thought provoking PBS series.
Dillon first played a Thompson at DHR Guitar in Cincinnati owned by the eclectic Dale Rabnier. Dale was a lefty himself and a big believer in high-end boutique left handed guitars. After Dale developed a relationship with Preston he had his friend Tim May bring along Dillon to demo some of Thompson’s left handed guitars build for DHR Guitars. Dillon said they were the best guitars he had ever played. Over the years Dillon has felt that guitar builders never gave quite the same effort for a left handed guitar whether it was not properly set up or using the scraps of guitar parts.
To him Thompson guitars were different – the craftsman took that extra time to create the optimum playability and sound. Years later we reached out to see if Dillon was interested in a couple of left handed guitars we had in the shop. He had never had a Mahogany guitar and after he played the 12 fret slope shoulder he realized what he was missing all these years. He feels the slotted headstock brings out the sound and he has connected with this guitar like no other, leading him into the beautiful land of mahogany.
We are thankful he is part of the Thompson family finally able to visit the shop and enjoy Sisters for a long weekend of guitar picking. Keep a watch out for Firekid in the years to come, I have a feeling there is lots left for us to hear!
Here are a few videos with all our instructors at this years camp : )
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