Not content to simply borrow from its wide range of musical influences, Chicago-based quartet Model N charts new musical territory with a sound built from the ground up: a booming acoustic bass, vintage deep-welled drums, deceptively simple guitar hooks, and the powerful songwriting and singing of Gia Biagi.
If the Velvet Underground and Uncle Tupelo started a garage band, you'd get close to the vibe.
Family traditions of musical exploration — from polka to rock, folk to Italian classics — shaped each member deeply. Gia and Travis, along with his brother Rob, first formed Model N as an acoustic trio, writing and performing with passed-out kids in the next room and slow weekends on the banks of the Mississippi. In 2007, Mike joined behind the drums and opened up entirely new vistas for the band. Like its home city of Chicago: dynamic, eclectic, and solid.
Handbuilt instruments from Kiel, Wisconsin. Father and son. A machinist's precision and a musician's ear. Built for players who demand something more.
Model N Guitars is a family partnership led by designer Travis Rejman and luthier Dan Rejman. We are a small band of family and friends with a love for music. Merging our electric and acoustic roots with an obsession for craft and tone, you can feel the passion embedded in every component of a hand-made instrument.
Everyone in the family plays. From roots in polka roots to DIY rock to experimental electronica. We started with a line of guitars because those are the instruments we first fell in love with. Each one is built by hand, with precision, with soul — and with materials sourced as close to home as possible.
Dan grew up in Milwaukee, working days as a machinist at Froedtert Malt — supplier to Miller and Anheuser-Busch — and playing guitar nights in polka bands around town. He cut his first record at 17.
Around the time Rollie Fingers and Robin Yount were carrying the Brewers toward the 1979 World Series, Dan left for Waterloo, Iowa, to bring his machinist skills to the John Deere factory. That's where he met Bonnie.
By the early 2000s, Dan and Bonnie had settled in Kiel, Wisconsin — where his love of craft, wood, music, and guitars found its home. Award-winning furniture came first, then formal luthier training under Frank Finocchio and Dale Unger. His machinist's precision, artist's eye, musician's ear, and workingman's ethic produce our beautiful, sonorous Midwest-made guitars.
Travis started playing music early and never stopped. He currently plays guitar in Model N, the band. He travels the world and always seeks out local musicians, clubs, and instrumentation wherever he lands.
Model N Guitars is an expression of Travis's passion to spend his life playing and appreciating music — and building the instruments that make that music possible. He designs guitars that blend the best of classic instruments in pursuit of that one perfect tone.
The guitars began as drawings, conversations, and obsessive research. Dan made them real.
We believe guitars have souls — and that the materials they're made of shape how they play and sound. We source our wood locally and sustainably, working with family forestlands and certified suppliers as close to home as possible.
No exotic wood. No unnecessary footprint. We're exploring ways to make every component of our guitars — from bridge to nut — by hand, from materials we can trace and stand behind. We'll share that journey here as it unfolds.
The band that started it all. Chicago rock. House of Blues. Lincoln Hall. Hear what these guitars were built to play.