Oscillating w/ Max Ostro

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Crank up your speakers and get ready for some shredding with guitarist Max Ostro. We found out how he started on the guitar, and how he mixes up his equipment and musical styles.

SB (StarBeat): Starters: What came first – music or the guitar?

MO (Max Ostro): The music came first: I’ve been listening to a lot of different music on my player. One day, being a guest, I noticed an old Soviet guitar, which had 5 strings out of six. I took it with me to learn how to play. I was about 10 years old.

SB: Changeling: It looks like you like to experiment with different guitars/setups. For those of us who don’t play what is that about?

MO: I used to play in completely different musical genres, so I use the appropriate instruments. For example, I use black Fernandes with rail pickups to play heavy metal, but to play fusion I would use blue Ibanez AZ with moderate output pickups, and etc.

SB: Variety: Do you stick with one style of music or mix it up?

MO: I mix it up. In reasonable proportions, certainly. Also, the fusion is a whole mix of different styles/genres, such as jazz, rock and etc.

SB: Forefront: Many people might see the guitar as supporting to a singer/band – how do you make it the main feature?

MO: The guitar can appear both as a rhythm and as a lead instrument in the track. When I’m preparing the full cover of the track originally with vocals, I’m converting a vocal line into the guitar part. For instance, I did exactly the same with my guitar cover of Fire by Yngwie Malmsteen.

Max Ostro