- Tell us your name and the band you play for
My name is Kraen Meier. I play guitar in Nominon, Artillery(dk) and The Petulant.
2. Who made you want to pick up the guitar
I guess it was the bay area movement that made me wanna play the guitar, you know those gutsy and chunky thrash riffs from back in the day.
3. Are you self taught or did you take lessons?
I’m mainly self-taught, though I took some lessons the first year I was playing, but soon started playing by ear. Just playing along to songs that I loved until I got the hang of it.
4. Can you read music, Can you read tab?
Yup, I also make tabs for people sometimes, using Guitar pro.
5. Do you feel like you have your own sound / tone?
I guess every player has his or her own tone in a certain way. I mean, even though the signal is put through amps and stuff, there’s still a unique sound to the way you attack the strings with your pick and the way you mute the strings.
6. Tell us about your guitar (brand, model, year, color)
Well, I just got a Solar V that I just love playing. It’s a V1.6FRC. Before that I played, and still play Gibson V’s, I have a classic white one, and a black one. I don’t really know when the white one was made, but the black one is a pretty recent model with bindings around the edges.
7. What about pickups? Passive or active? Tell us about them.
In the Solar guitar, I have the stock Duncan solar pickups, and I tell you that guitar sounds like a beast! In the white Gibson, I have Seymour Duncan sh 6 distortion pickups, which are really aggressive and colourful. In the black Gibson, I have the stock Gibson 57 pickups, and they have a really good and dry chunk to them.
8. Lets get into amplification. Same drill: brand, model, speakers etc.
I have the classic Marshall 9200 and jmp 1 rig, or actually 2 of them with a tc G major system in each. Then I also have a ENGL Richie Blackmore and an old Marshall JCM 800 2210 High gain amp head, so I guess I’m quite a Marshall man. I use 2 Marshall 1960 B cabs. But that’s all a bit heavy for flying and touring, so I also have a smaller touring rig that consists of a Mooer preamp live and a Mooer tube engine amp. On top of that I use a Line 6 G 50 wireless, and then some odds and ends, but that.s it basically.
9. Do you have a pedal board? Tell us about that band-boy.
I only use single pedals like an Ibanez tube screamer, sometimes a Morly wah and then a tc chorus pedal for my touring rig. Other than that, I have my tc G systems that take care of all my effects in my rack systems.
10. Now tell us your Dream Rig in detail.
A dream rig would be a 5150 blockletters with a 4X12 ENGL cab, and then pretty much all the stuff that I have right now.
11. What guitarist can you not stand?
That’s a really difficult question, ’cause when there’s something that I really can’t stand, I’ll just leave it, not wasting any thought on it… Would I even want to give a guitarist that I couldn’t stand any space in an interview such as this?? I don’t think so!
12. Is tone more important or is technique?
As I said in the beginning, I think that tone and technique are locked together in a way. But technique never comes before tone or music, does that make sense???
13. Name your top 5 guitarists
Gary Holt, James Hetfield (in the eighties), Richie Blackmore (in the seventies), Jeff Hannemann, John Norum.
14. Who is the most overrated guitarist
Again a really difficult question, as it would only reflect my personal taste in music, and not the skills of the player that I would mention. Maybe Noel Gallagher of Oasis, but that’s just a reflection of my personal taste, and it really doesn’t say anything about him as a player or a music writer.
15. Who would you like a one hour private sit down lessons with anyone dead or alive?
Enio Morricone would have been really awe-inspiring to get a private lesson from. He was one of the best soundtrack writers and composers of his time, and he had a really interesting way of blending instruments and genres.
Wes is the owner of Metal Moose, Metal Coffee, The Metal Times and The Pitchfork Syndicate, and he has 20 years of the biz under his belt, focused on the indie heavy music scene from the unlikely location of Oklahoma City. Wes is bringing his Guitar Series Axemen and Underground Spotlight to MHF.
