Dec. '06 GT Interview -- Akira


earthman buck
Registered User
Joined: 10/15/05
Posts: 2,953
earthman buck
Registered User
Joined: 10/15/05
Posts: 2,953
11/23/2006 1:49 am
Despite his recent absence from the forums, Akira remains a well respected member of the GT family. He was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to let me ask him a few questions.

What first got you into playing guitar?

I first got into guitar about 4 years ago, I went to check in on someone's house as they'd gone away for the week, there was this really nice looking guitar on a stand in the back room (a Charvel Model 6) and I guess I was just sort of attracted to it, I got lessons arranged through my mum (I was very shy at the time) and then I started receiving two lessons a week for the first month, then once a week for a further year, after that, he said he'd taught me everything he knew. My main early musical influence was Rage Against the Machine, I learned a load of their material and even played in a RATM cover band, although that has since disbanded.

What kind of setup do you use?

My set up at the moment is as follows:

Main Guitar: Jackson Soloist SL2H
Back-up: Ibanez RG470 (ugh...)

Going into a pedal board:

Boss TU-15 Tuner
Ernie Ball 6166 Volume Pedal
Morley Bad Horsie 2 Wah Wah
MXR Dyna-comp Compressor
Keeley Boss DS-1 Ultra
Boss CH-1 Chorus
Boss DD-3 Delay (in amp FX loop)

And my amp:

A Rivera M-100 head with two 1x12 cabs, one with a Celestion Vintage 30 and the other with an EV speaker (I don't know the exact model). Sounds sweet as!

You have some sort of problem with your hand, do you not? What exactly is it, and how do you deal with it?

I'm currently in the recovering stages of Tendonitis. After my exams finished I had the whole summer with nothing planned, so what did I do? Play guitar! About 7 hours a day. As you can imagine, it took its toll on my hand and in late August I went to see the doc where he confirmed my biggest fear: I had tendonitis. I then had 6 weeks off from guitar and was on strong Ibuprofen for 4 of those weeks.

Emotionally it was very hard, not being able to play guitar was extremely upsetting, especially with my degree starting not long after I got tendonitis. I started watching a lot of comedy to cheer me up (literally anything that was on TV and made me laugh, but mainly Bottom, Two Pints, and Home Improvement, also this crazy claymation called Robot Chicken. Oh yeah, Aqua Teen Hunger Force too). I wasn't able to use my left hand for anything, so I learnt to type quite quickly with my right hand. It was hard at first doing my degree, with opting to do performance too, but eventually I was able to play again. Now I can play for about an hour a day without much grief, I try not to push it though, no crazy shredding stuff like I used to.

My biggest fear at the moment is the tendonitis coming back; I have days where I'm in a lot of pain, and days (like today) where I can play for 3 or 4 hours without a hitch.

Look after your hands, kids.

What's your favourite song to play at the moment?

You know, this is a weird one, my favourite song to play at the moment is Blondie - One Way Or Another. It's a very simple song to play but it's really fun to play in a band; we're playing it at my first gig in a few weeks.

Ah yes, tell us a bit about your upcoming gig.

Yep, I'm losing my gig virginity on December 5th. We have three songs we can play from start to finish, which means we're really underprepared! We're basically just doing cover tunes, Blondie, The Connels, and various other stuff, I don't even know the names of some of the songs we're playing. It's part of my degree, but fortunately this performance isn't going to be graded, thank goodness!

Everyone knows that the British are fond of their tea. What is your favourite tea?

I like good ol' Yorkshire tea!
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