1.Tell us your name and the band you
play for
This is Darren Stroud and I play guitar
for PowerTribe
2.Who made you want to pick up the
guitar
It was Ace Frehley. I thought Kiss was
so cool. His smoking guitar was awesome!! I saw them on late night
TV when I was about 10 years old and knew I needed to play rock
guitar.
3.Are you self taught or did you take
lessons?
Both, I learned a lot just by listening
and picking up stuff. Then I took lessons as well and also studied
theory books. Listening to Randy Rhoads and studying those theory
books really helped me understand theory and how it applied to the
music I loved. That was my goal from the beginning – I wanted to
know how the music worked and what made it sound like it does. I
pretty much put that together myself. But lessons helped in pointing
out modes and stuff. I just had to figure out how they tied into
Randy's playing.
4. Can you read music, Can you read
tab?
Yeah I read music and tab.
5.Do you feel like you have your own
sound / tone ?
Absolutely! I've been a gear nut
forever, always searching for the tone in my head. And I actually
found it by learning to build and modify my own amps and pedals. I
also have a friend, Roy Blankenship – amp maker – he helps me
with the amps to make sure they have the right components to have
that older Marshall sound and feel, which I use to build my tone off
of.
6.Tell us about your guitar ( brand
,model . year , color )
My guitars are all parts guitars. They
are all either Fender or Squire bodies/necks that I've put together.
My main stage guitar is a no name strat body that has been burned and
has a Squire neck. It was an experiment that turned out real good
for real cheap lol I've got a Charvel, Les Paul but the guitars
that see the action are the strats I've put together. I have at least
12 lying around. Some have floyd's, some are the standard bridge,
7.What about pickups? Passive or active
? Tell us about them
Passive for me. My fave is the Seymour
Duncan Hot Rails. I also like the Dimebucker, but I hard wire a tone
circuit to tame the high end on that one. It's a great sounding
pickup when the highs are rolled off a bit.
8.Lets get into amplification, Same
drill brand , model , speakers etc
I have 2 main amps. One is a plexi
style that I built, again with the help of Roy Blankenship. The other
is a Blankenship Masterplex which is a slightly hot rodded JCM800
that Roy built for me. I also use a Peavey 6505 Mini for recording –
it blends real well with the Marshall style amps. My main cab is a
Marshal 1960BX which has Greenbacks. I also use a Ho attenuator with
the plexi. It's kind of a controversial attenuator, but I've used it
for years with no issues, When recording the difference of having the
plexi wide open or attenuated to just over tv volume is minimal.
9.Do you have a pedal board? Tell us
about that badboy
My pedal board is pretty simple 1st
is a modified Boss SD-1, that's for solos, then a Boss Waza Metal
Zone – the WAZA MZ rocks in Waza mode. I use that for rhythms when
playing live. Then a Boss DD3 for delay in 1 song that's in our set
and that's it.
10.Now tell us your Dream Rig in
detail….
I seriously have the tone I need,so I
guess my dream rig is listed above and thankfully I own it :)
12. Is tone more important or is
technique?
I'm going to go tone. I'd much rather
hear a guitar player with great tone than a great player with bad
tone. Michael Schenker isn't the most technical player in terms of
speed, but I can listen to him all day, and his tone is a big part of
why. And his vibrato, which would be technique but still not
necessarily a flashy or speedy player.
13. Name your top 5 guitarist
- Michael Schenker
- Randy Rhoads
- Yngwie Malmsteen
- Mike Ammott
- Jon Schaffer
14.Who is the most overrated guitarist
ahhhh that's tough. Any body who's
anywhere has worked really hard to get there, so you can't really
take anything away from them.
15.Who would you like a one hour
private sit down lessons with anyone dead or alive?
I'd go Randy Rhoads, just because I
never got to see him live. Sitting down with him would be awesome.
He just seemed to love guitar, and that's how I am so I think it
would be fun.
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