Reader Spotlight: Linus Abrahamson
Meet Linus Abrahamson, a musician from Sweden who never seems to sit still and has certainly accomplished quite a lot in his musical career: three separate projects happening right now (with his fourth on hiatus due to “people having babies”), a double master’s degree in music education, and more.
Linus is No Treble’s reader in the spotlight for the week of November 17, 2014. Here’s his story…
Bio:
Born in the small and non-happening town of Hjo, I started to play bass at around age 10.
I just kept doing it ever since then – now being in multiple bands and music projects.
Location:
Malmö, Sweden
Day gig:
I teach bass, guitar (acoustic and electric) and ensemble at a music school, for which I have a double master’s degree in music education.
Years experience:
20+ years
Bands & Gigs:
My main band is the prog metal act Andromeda – the band has a bunch of studio albums as well as a live DVD released, and we’ve been on multiple tours and headlining progressive metal festival gigs (like Rock Storm 2013 with 23,000 people in the audience – quite an amazing experience).
My second band is Anton Johansson’s Galahad Suite – a band that started out as just a recording project which has released a self-titled album (I played both bass and guitars on the album).
My third involvement is the Fragile project – the first solo release by Acke Hallgren, where I helped write the songs and played both bass and guitars on the album.
I also have a cover band by the name of Metal Station – we’re currently on hiatus because of people in the band having babies, but we’ll be back on the (gigging) road again soon.
Gear:
- Woodo B7 Walnut 7-string bass (primary)
- VGS Cobra Select 5-string bass (spare)
- Washburn B-10 4-string bass (fretless)
- TC Electronic RH750 bass head
- Marshall 2×15″ bass cabinet
- T-Rex ToneTrunk 42 pedal board + FuelTank Junior power supply
- Line 6 G30 Relay (wireless unit)
- Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner (tuner)
- Ibanez Tone-Lok PD7 Phat-Hed Bass Overdrive (distortion)
- Ibanez Tone-Lok TC7 Tri-Mode Chorus (chorus)
- Ibanez Tone-Lok DE7 Delay/Echo (delay)
- Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor (noise gate)
Why I play the bass:
Hearing Deep Purple’s Machine Head for the first time, as well as my dad saying that “bass is a really cool instrument, you should try it” and so I did. Thanks, dad!
My bass superpower/claim to fame:
My superpower is actually split into to things that are somewhat related:
- I’m really good at sight-reading music, both on bass and guitar.
- I’m also really good at transcribing stuff, both on bass and guitar (I do that one side of my regular job, having done transcription work for Jonas Hellborg, Mattias IA Eklundh, and others).
My influences:
My first bass heroes/idols were definitely Cliff Burton from Metallica and David Ellefson from Megadeth, but nowadays I draw more influence from songwriters/producers rather than individual bass players. Jem Godfrey (songwriter/producer/singer/keyboardist) from British prog rockers Frost* and Mattias IA Eklundh (songwriter/producer/singer/guitarist) from Swedish experimental rock/metal band Freak Kitchen are two main influences. As for prog metal bass players, I think Rob van der Loo (at least when he played with Sun Caged) is a cool cat!
More on the web:
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Hey! I know this guy : ) Linus a.k.a. Mr Gul is a real wizard of music and a super nice guy
Hey, my long-distance friend! Glad to see you here at No Treble. Thanks a whole bunch for those supporting words. I hope I can live up to them! :)
Great to see my old band Frost* getting a mention :)
A comment John Jowitt himself – feeling honoured! I’m a bit sad that I wasn’t able to catch Frost* live while you were still in the band, but since then I’ve managed to fly over to England twice to see them (first at the Frost*Bites double feature, and then at Celebr8.3).
Cheers Linus, good luck with what you do, checking it out, impressive!