As senior director of product development at Gibson, Mat Koehler is behind the company’s drive for maximum vintage authenticity in its reissues, from Epiphone Coronets to Custom Colour Firebirds. But he says the Les Paul – and the man who put his moniker on one of the most iconic electrics of all time – was the guitar that sparked his interest in working for the Nashville company and it remains one of his ruling passions.
“I’m from Waukesha, Wisconsin, Les Paul’s hometown,” Mat says, “so the name Les Paul has always been legendary to me. Even as a kid and growing up, my uncle had a music store there called White House Of Music and you’d always hear whispers that ‘Les Paul’s in town’… It was ever-present. I was always around guitars, but the Les Paul always had the mystique to me and that led to me really wanting to find an opportunity to work for Gibson. So yeah, in a way, it means everything to me.”
With this thought to conjure with, we sit down with Mat to get his forensic view on the large and small transitions the model made in its earliest years, including the anomalies and one-offs thrown up by the breakneck speed of change as
