ORIGINAL PLANS
Eastman’s Romeo is no inspired-by clone – it typifies a new, original direction for the Chinese-made brand. But, as Pepijn ‘t Hart explains, it almost didn’t happen…
For the past year, Eastman’s Romeo has been its best-selling electric guitar, but in conversation with Pepijn ‘t Hart (international sales & product manager, Guitar & Mandolin Division) we discover its birth was rather delayed. “Originally, Otto D’Ambrosio had intended Romeo to be the most ergonomic jazz guitar for jazz players, but since the jazz world is not the biggest market out there I was a little doubtful,” he tells us from his Netherlands base. “This was around 2017/2018, when we’d begun work on the project. “Then, for some reason, the workshop in Beijing [where Eastman guitars are made] messed up on some of the woods in prototyping. Suddenly, there was a maple not mahogany neck on Romeo and a solid spruce top with laminated back and sides, whereas it was supposed to have a solid maple top with solid mahogany back – which obviously makes it a completely different instrument. But I got to play the ‘wrong’ version and it had these completely different voices: a sort of ‘Tele’ sound from the bridge pickup. The Lollars [Imperials] are wonderful because they really seem to adapt to the guitar, almost bringing out something you never expected.”
So, you’re saying the Romeo we got to see was actually a happy accident?
“Yes, the woods were really a lucky coincidence. But then we saw that this could be our road. We’ve always wanted to create original instruments, but, as you know, if you create an original guitar that no-one likes… I mean, everyone wants guitars that have been around for 60 years! You have to be very careful and we are quite an old-fashioned company in our ways and the way we make instruments. But this guitar suddenly opened up a whole new world for us. When we introduced it at Summer NAMM 2019, the response was overwhelming.”
What was the thinking behind this new LA version of the Romeo?
“The first thing we did was an all-laminate version, taking away the solid top so it gets more into the area of the classic thinline semis and a little bit lighter sounding. Eric Dorton [director of brand development] at Seymour Duncan showed us the radiator covers with that gold foil inside and I thought these are definitely going on the ‘new Romeo’, as we called it back then. Gold Foils are very popular, but I’m not a fan, especially with pedals. That might be me, but I’ve never really liked the sound. So we discussed using these covers on a Phat Cat P-90 – a humbucking sized P-90 pickup. Seymour Duncan liked the idea and started making them for us. “Then I really wanted a vibrato and that’s when we thought about calling it ‘LA’: we wanted a kind of a surf-sounding guitar, like a Jazzmaster or Jaguar, but on a thinline. We thought we’d use a Bigsby B3, but that didn’t fit at all because of the curve of the top. Then I remembered Duesenberg – I’d worked for a company in the late 80s that imported them and I’ve always had a great friendship with Dieter Gölsdorf. So I called him and explained the problem and he came up with the answer: the Les Trem. We tried it and it seemed to have been designed for Romeo LA! It added so much airy, springy sound. The pieces were falling into place. “Finally, there was the colour. Otto makes custom editions in Pomona [California], one-off guitars in special colours. He’d finished a one-off thinline in Celestine Blue, which we thought was such a beautiful colour. The problem was getting that to Beijing as Otto had mixed the colour simply for that one guitar. In production, everyone has to be the same. That took a while to get right.”
Tell us about the new ‘Truetone’ finish…
“We have said goodbye to nitrocellulose for both environmental and health reasons; that finish is just not sustainable in this day and age. [Editor’s note: Eastman doesn’t share specific details, but states that Truetone comes in satin, vintage gloss and gloss, as here.] Truetone is just as thin and great sounding as our previous nitrocellulose finish. This new topcoat offers maximum protection for the instrument while consciously minimising the footprint it leaves on our planet.”
You mentioned to us previously that there will be no more ‘inspired-by’ Eastman designs such as the SB59, for example, in terms of new instruments. Is that still the aim?
“Qian Ni [Eastman’s founder] always wanted at one point to have original guitars, original designs, but that’s not something you can do overnight. When I started with product development in 2016, Gibson wasn’t such a presence in the market as it is now. That’s why I designed the SB59 – I don’t think the market was ready for a fully original electric guitar from us at that point. “And when Otto originally designed Romeo, as I said, I kept the project on hold for almost two years. But when we were in the workshop in China in September 2018, I think, and we had that ‘wrong’ Romeo, Qian walked by as we were checking the guitar and he said, ‘This is the way the future of Eastman should look.’ Until that point, I’d only seen it as a jazz guitar and I wanted to venture away from that. But then I saw it as our own thinline guitar – our own shape and with some original sounds, too. So Otto conceived the design, Qian recognised it, and I brought it to the market.”
“The workshop messed up in prototyping… the woods were really a lucky coincidence