This article series is about the tools of popular guitarists. What are their favorite guitars and how is it related to them? This time with Marius Danielsen.
When you start guitar playing and do you remember your first guitar?
I started playing guitar in 2003 because of Iron Maiden. I bought a Fender Stratocaster Mexico as my first guitar since it looked like the guitars Adrian Smith and Dave Murray used when I saw them for the first time.
What are your influences and which guitar players are your favs?
My main influence is Iron Maiden and 80s Heavy Metal. Then comes Power Metal. My favourite guitar players are Adrian Smith, Dave Murray, Kai Hansen, Jimmy Hedlund and Johnny Ramone.
How many guitars do you own and what are your favorite models?
I think it must be around 20+ guitars now. I am not sure, because I have some guitars still at my childhood home. My favourite guitar is my ESP, but I also love my Gibson Les Pauls.
What do you think makes the perfect guitar and amp?
For me it is 24 frets, very low adjusted string height and angry humbuckers. And the amp really needs to chug and have some epic mids.
How do you feel about the question of modeler or tube amp?
I have used both for many years. I even supported Anthrax using an iPad as my “amp“ with an iRig Pro and Bias FX 2. Right now I am moving back to tube amps and pre-amps. But my live rig will be a mix of both worlds. I will use a rack preamp with an IR cab loader with power amp simulation. That way I don’t need to carry around 30 kilos of power amp/guitar head.
Which guitars and amps were used on the new album or for recordings?
On my newest album I used my new Engl Powerball 2 amp on everything except for a few clean guitar parts where I used my trusty old Marshall JCM 2000 TSL 100. I used mostly my ESP guitar, but used one of my Gibson Les Paul Goldtops for two songs.
When you only can choose one guitar, which one will you take?
My ESP! It is a special edition that was made only 500 of. It is called
„ESP Eternal Descent Lyra F“. And for show I would of course take my epic sword guitar!
