Oops.
Just a little back story: I was in a metal band in high school and throughout university I was in a 3 piece grunge rock band. In the mid 90’s I got into electronic music (The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers), left the band soon after and in the late 90’s I had pretty much stopped listening to traditional rock music altogether. In 1997 I bought a Korean made Squier Strat and have pretty much played clean (no distortion) since then.
This year I’ve really dedicated myself to becoming a better guitar player. Earlier this month I turned 46 years old and bought myself my dream guitar, a US made Fender Strat. I also bought a budget Strat with a Humbucker in the bridge to see if I could get some fatter dirty tones out of it, but it just didn’t really click. As much as I’ve been really enjoying playing bluesy stuff on my Strats, an itch to own a Les Paul came outta nowhere.
I just bought the most expensive guitar I’ve ever bought (the Fender Strat) so a genuine Gibson Les Paul would have been a stretch. I started looking at the Epiphone Les Pauls but then I came across a whole lot of YouTube videos that took me down the rabbit hole of Gibson’s “play authentic” campaign, quality control issues, Chibsons and in the end I just pulled the trigger on a local designed but Chinese made Les Paul style guitar for $238 Australian Dollars.
Within minutes I realised the effects I was running on my Strat through my Boss Katana didn’t quite suit this LP style guitar, but it didn’t take me too long to realise that all I had to do was plug it straight into my old Marshall Valvestate amp, crank the gain up, no pedals, no post processing and MAN! My Strats could never sound like this! This thing chugs! It’s just brought that whole era of my life back and for the past few days my Spotify playlist has gone from mellow to AC/DC, Faith No More and Guns N’ Roses.
Really happy to break the Strat chain (my last 4 guitar purchases have all been Strats) and really happy to be listening to rock and metal again. More than happy to diversify and entertain owning other legendary guitars in future too, but the itch to own a real Gibson Les Paul is now greater than ever. Time to start saving!