Our Story
It Started With a Question
and a Napkin Sketch
Liaison Guitars started the way many good ideas do: quietly, and with no intention of becoming a boutique guitar company.
I've been playing music since I was a teenager. I'm no virtuoso, but it's always been central to my life. From writing and recording to performing across a range of genres, I've played nearly every flavor of guitar and bass. Over the years, I kept coming back to the same thought: what if I could take the elements I loved from each one and combine them? What would that feel like, look like, play like?
So I sketched a guitar on a napkin, a first attempt at answering that question. I wasn't aiming to reinvent the wheel, just trying to design the kind of guitar I always wished existed. Something:
- Ergonomic, genuinely comfortable for long sessions
- Expressive, responsive across every style
- Versatile enough for any setting or genre
- Familiar, yet different in all the right ways
I made a life-size cardboard cutout of that original sketch and brought it to a good friend, a skilled luthier who's since become my quiet co-conspirator in this whole adventure. Over the next few months, we worked through everything: materials, dimensions, electronics, ergonomics.
About six months later, the first Model0ne was born.
That guitar sparked something. Not just in me, but in other players. I lent it out to a few players and asked them to be brutally honest, because some of what we were doing was a bit foreign from a "standard" guitar.
One player told me that for the first few days, he really didn't like it. It felt odd. Then after about a week, it clicked. He said he found it more comfortable than his Fender Strat, which he'd been playing for years. Another player, exclusive to Les Paul-style guitars, took to it more quickly and found it more playable than his Les Pauls. "This is really good! How can I get one of these?"
And that was the beginning of Liaison Guitars.
Since then, we've kept designing with intention and continual refinement in mind. The Demon, our second model, came from an unexpected source of inspiration: the automotive "platform" concept. Start with a solid, consistent foundation and build distinct models on top of it. Same neck profile, scale, and electronics layout; different body shape and voicing. That's become our approach: design with purpose, refine with care, and always make instruments that feel personal but never fragile.
We're not a factory. We're not chasing trends. We're a designer and a luthier, working together to handcraft a small number of instruments each year that serve as a true liaison between the music and the musician.
~Raph | Founder
The Model0ne
Model0ne First Cut
