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Kurt - Guitar
Guitarist Kurt was born and raised in the borough of the Bronx of New York City. While he always had a strong inclination towards music and art it wasn’t until is later years in high school that he became strongly interested in rock music, which was rather ironic since the first album he ever bought was AC/DC’s “For those about to rock”, when he was only 5 years old. This was also about the time he started to pursue the guitar. When he attended David Bowie’s 50th birthday party in Jan. 1997 it further sparked his interest in guitar, and became one of the most important moments in his musical career. “The way in which Reeves Gabrels used the guitar in Bowie’s music at the show was just incredible. He made sounds come out of the guitar that I never even thought of and used them in such a way to make beautiful music. It was that moment which made me want to pursue the guitar to farther depths. Not to become an 80’s shredder type or anything like that, although I highly respect those players who have that ability, but rather to use the guitar to make more interesting and textured sounds, melodies, and develop my own individual style.” This style Kurt speaks of has many influences ranging from the aforementioned classic rock of AC/DC to the modern techno rock of Garbage. “Some of the more progressive people that have influenced my guitar playing and thought are the veritable genius Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Reeves Gabrels, Thomas Blug, and of course some landmark guitarists such as Angus Young, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Eddie Van Halen.” Kurt has a great love and respect for music and the guitar in particular. He appreciates virtually all forms of music and likes to incorporate different elements of each into his music.
Kurt uses tons of equipment, which the band jokingly likes to call “mission control”. A few years ago, on a quest for ultimate tone, Kurt founded KWCABS guitar speaker cabinets. “I couldn’t find the tone that I was searching for, I had a woodworking background and decided to make my own to my own specs, the results were so inspiring that I decided this would be my career and KWCABS was born.” He uses various guitars from Parker, Ibanez, Fender, Taylor, and others. He uses two main rigs depending on venue size. His main rig consists of duel channel path one into a Roland VG-8EX and another into a long chain consisting primarily of the ultimate preamp the Engl E580 into a Roland GP-100 and Marshall JMP-1 both into a VHT power amp meeting BBE sonic maximization and an ISP Decimator noise reduction along the way and out to a variety of KWCABS 2x12 cabinets, a Lexicon floor controller is used to control them. The secondary rig for smaller venues is a Hughes & Kettner Zentera combo amp. Kurt also uses various other products from Boss, Marshall, Dunlop, Ernie Ball and Morley.
