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 as close as family who share a love for music and a sense that creating something you care about is some of the most important work there is. Merging our 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 an instrument and we believe music is something everyone can make with a little encouragement. With wide ranging interests and tastes across the family — from polka and blues to DIY rock to experimental electronica, we are inspired by it all. We started with a line of guitars because those are the instruments we first fell in love with. Each one is built by hand using 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 grew up in Waterloo, Iowa, and has called Chicago home for over 30 years. He plays guitar in Model N and worked the door at Rosa's Blues Lounge for the free admission — and the free beer didn't hurt. Electric and acoustic, he's played both his whole life.
A tone obsessive and vinyl junkie, Travis stops in cities around the world to dig for local records he can't find at home. That same restlessness drives the guitar designs — pulling the best from great instruments to create unique tone monsters that don't sound like anything else.
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.