Jared James Nichols: “I was playing a lot of Strats and Telecasters. And then I tried a Les Paul Standard. The first thing I thought was, ‘Holy f**k, this feels like a Cadillac!’”

“I was actually born in the same city as Les Paul, a place called Waukesha in Wisconsin. There’s a massive street there called Les Paul Parkway that was named in tribute to him, which has all these street signs with his signature on them. So even before I knew what it was all about, when I was like five years old or whatever, I remember thinking how cool that was. I probably wanted to steal one! 

“Later on, when I started out on guitar, I was playing a lot of Strats because of Stevie Ray Vaughan and even Telecasters, because Jimmy Page often recorded with them. And then after a while I ended up trying out a Les Paul Standard with two humbuckers. The first thing I thought was, ‘Holy fuck, this feels like a Cadillac!’ I knew what I had in my hands was some seriously fancy shit. Then I hit an E chord and felt all this power. It sounded huge, like all the Black Sabbath records I was listening to at the time. 

“I quickly realised the other instruments I had been playing didn’t sound like that. I knew I was holding something truly special. To me, it felt like the guitar was alive. It had this super punch that no other guitar had – and every time I would try out different brands or models, just to see what else was out there and hear how they made me play, I would keep coming back to the Les Paul. Honestly, it just kept calling back to me and I think it was a combination of the weight, the feel and the sound...

“People don’t talk about this enough, but I really love the layout of Les Pauls. It feels so user-friendly to me – you have a volume and tone as a pair for each pickup – and the pickup selector up high, where it makes sense to have one. And the more I started using those controls, the more I realised just how expressive a Les Paul can be. 

“Turning those knobs and fiddling around can really change your tone! So that’s when I started to dig in and try to figure out what the fuck my sound was going to be. How would I take this guitar that we all know and love, which we’ve all heard our heroes play, and find my own voice in it?” 

“Eventually, I ended up with Les Pauls fitted with P-90s and realised a guitar with those pickups could cover even more ground. They can sound super-aggressive, almost like humbuckers, but they can also be very touch-sensitive. Whenever I would manipulate the volume or tone controls, I could dial in so many different sounds, and I quickly realised that was it for me. 

“This was going to be my sound. A Les Paul with just one P-90, which is what I tend to play, can go from a whisper to a scream. It’s funny, most people will look at Les Pauls and think, ‘I’ve seen those things since forever; they’re kinda boring!’ But there’s something about the construction and design that has allowed players to speak over the years. It’s a tried-and-true instrument that has stood the test of time.” 

“Believe it or not, in 2021 I actually got one of the first Les Pauls ever made – a Goldtop with P-90s from 1952 that got destroyed in a tornado back in 2013. I fully restored it and named it Dorothy! That guitar now sounds so good it can pretty much take on anything and win. It’s so expressive and still sounds like a monster. Everyone I know that has tried it gets completely blown away. Richie Faulkner from Judas Priest came round the other day and he started ripping metal on it in ways even I couldn’t have imagined.

“I honestly didn’t know it could sound that heavy! Which proves that a Les Paul with P-90s can be so dynamic – you realise that the more you dig in and tinker with it, the more sounds you will uncover and the more it pays off. Basically, the more of yourself you throw into it, the more you get out! And everyone will have their own sweet spot.” 

“If there’s one guitar that got away for me it was Old Glory, which was an original 1968 Les Paul Custom which I removed the neck pickup from. I’m so gutted I sold it. You know how it is when you’re a kid – you think it’s just another guitar and it’s more important that you pay rent. I used it on the first album I ever made, Old Glory & The Wild Revival in 2015. 

“I played that guitar just because I loved it and people started to really notice it, asking me ‘What the fuck is this Les Paul?!’ and it was literally just a Les Paul Custom with one pickup. It had this quirkiness that really intrigued people. And that’s what eventually inspired my Epiphone signatures. 

“I’ll never forget the day I was hanging out at Gibson and they said, ‘Hey Jared, we want to make you signature Les Paul Custom through Epiphone, so it’s affordable for kids!’ They hadn’t even finished talking and I was like, ‘Yes, 100 per cent, I’m in!’ There was the Old Glory in black, then we did the Gold Glory in gold and soon there will be a Pelham Blue version coming out.

“Honestly, the more I listen the more I appreciate how these blues-rock legends changed the game. Especially with Les Paul players, you can hear exactly what they were trying to say – and some of them were saying things through their guitar that had never been said before!

“Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, Paul Kossoff, Peter Green... you feel like you know them because you’ve heard them speak through their guitars on these game-changing records. At the end of the day, it’s all about expression and the Les Paul is the always best tool for the job!”