“He plugged it in and we both shut up and went, ‘This is an amazing guitar.’ It just sounded extraordinary”: How a friendly rivalry with Jake Kiszka helped Chris Turpin bag this stunning double-cut

Mirador (left), Chris Turpin's 1961 Gibson SG/Les Paul — (Image credit: Future/Phil Barker/Matt Lincoln)

As told to Guitarist by Chris Turpin.

“So we call this ‘The One That Got Away’. And when me and Jake [Kiszka of Greta Van Fleet] were working on the Mirador album, we spent a day hitting up a few guitar shops, including Vintage ‘n’ Rare [in Bath, England] in the morning and ATB [in Melksham, England] later, where they had a killer little 1x12 Park combo. It was like a 50-watt, with reverb, and it was sitting in some dusty corner and I was like, ‘We should plug that in.’ And so we did, and it sounded incredible.

“So I was talking to [the ATB staff] and said, ‘Okay, I think I’m gonna do this. I just need to have a think about what will have to be sold to justify it.’ But Jake just said, ‘Ah, no, it’s okay. I’ll bring it into the family fold – I’ll buy it right on the spot.’

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“After that, we went to Vintage ‘n’ Rare, and it was right at the end of the day and we’re hanging out upstairs, and they had this ’61 Les Paul/SG. Jake’s played countless numbers of them, and owns quite a few. So every time he sees one, he’ll play it. And he plugged this one [in] and we both kind of just shut up and went, ‘This is an amazing guitar.’ Just sounded extraordinary, right off the bat. Jake was lost in it for 10 minutes.

Chris Turpin's 1961 Gibson SG/Les Paul — (Image credit: Future/Matt Lincoln)

“So I picked it up and realized this thing’s really alive. You can tell it had been owned by a player – it’d been worn down and it had a stock tailpiece at some point… someone had been playing this thing. No idea who it was or where it came from – if anyone out there knows… So we left buzzing about it and Jake was like, ‘I’m gonna put an offer in.’

“I could give it a month [to consider it] then come in and make an offer. So the next day, it was in the back of my mind. It’s player grade, so I thought, ‘If I trade this, this, this, and this, I could probably get close.’

“So I spoke to Steve Hove [then manager of Vintage ‘n’ Rare], who’s now at ATB, he said he would be willing to do it. So I went in and got it from underneath Jake and he was genuinely quite pissed off [laughs].

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“So yes, we now joke that it’s ‘The One That Got Away’. It’s got real Patent Applied For pickups and it’s a little earlier than Jake’s. We've put them side by side. Jake thinks it sounds like his before he trashed it…”

This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Jamie Dickson is Editor-in-Chief of Guitarist magazine, Britain's best-selling and longest-running monthly for guitar players. He started his career at the Daily Telegraph in London, where his first assignment was interviewing blue-eyed soul legend Robert Palmer, going on to become a full-time author on music, writing for benchmark references such as 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and Dorling Kindersley's How To Play Guitar Step By Step. He joined Guitarist in 2011 and since then it has been his privilege to interview everyone from B.B. King to St. Vincent for Guitarist's readers, while sharing insights into scores of historic guitars, from Rory Gallagher's '61 Strat to the first Martin D-28 ever made.