First published in Guitar Player magazine May 1975.
 Jan Akkerman, lead guitarist of Focus, represents the new
breed of European guitarists so long invisible under the veil of the English players.
Where the islander tends to base his playing more on the American blues scene and his own contemporaries (legends such as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page), the continental devotee has influences as far afield as J.S.Bach and Django Reinhardt. Because the European musician tends to be a bit more eclectic in his approach to the instrument, it has taken this country longer to accept him within the ranks of the straight British and American rock guitarists. Jan Akkermans technique and tone quality combine the subtlety and demand of the classical guitar (on which he is highly accomplished) with the roar and tenacity of the electric instrument (he places well each year in English instrumental polls and was fourth in GPs 1974 poll). Born 27 years ago in the Netherlands, he is devoted constantly to the guitar, and even as this interlude took place Jan cradled a newly purchased Martin acoustic. |
| One gets the impression that you started guitar at a very early age. |
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I did. I got a little piano
when I was 2, but you couldn't play anything on it because the black keys were out, so it
was all tonal. It was just a few years later that I saw this little guitar in a shop
window by my home, and on Christmas day I had it. It cost ten bucks, and since that time
I've played day-in day-out, year-in year-out. My father said I should know more about the
guitar, so he arranged it so that I got a scholarship from the state, and I had to do an
exam for this guy. I did that for five years, and then I was getting questioned on the
theoretical side so they said, "Out!" But I can read very well now. I also read
tablature, the 15th and 16th Century notation of the music for the lute.
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| Do you remember when you received your first electric guitar? |
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When I was about 5 or 6. It
was an Egmond, and it was a strange axe. It was made out of triplex and looked just like a
piece of firewood. I'd just like to say here that I can't play guitar but I make people
crazy with my manoeuvres (laughs). My first amp was a radio, of course - an old messed up
radio with high blood pressure which had the title "amp" and managers behind
stage, keeping the wires in with these old wooden matches.
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| What was your first real work with a band? |
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I guess it was the Friendship
Sextet. These guys were 21, 23 and I was 10. But this was just on the weekends because
these guys kept asking my parents, "Hey, hey, hey, he should play with us." But
my parents said, "No, this boy isn't going to go anywhere." So I started playing
in nightclubs and in the first rock shows in Holland about sixteen years ago. We were
already playing rhythm and blues, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, stuff like that. I started
listening to the radio about this time for as much as I could, because I didn't have a
record player. I just never got interested in the piano, it wasn't in my character. I'm
kind of an ego-tripper I guess.
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| Is guitar an ego thing for you? |
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No, it's my only security. I
mean the only security is in myself of course, but the guitar is the medium for it - this
piece of wood with six ropes on it.
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| When did the band Brainbox happen? |
 That was about '68 and was a
good deal after the Sextet. I had a bad name in Holland (Amsterdam) because I'd run from
group to group, went to nightclubs without my parents knowing it and sat in with the
bands. Kind of a "guitarophile." Brainbox was kind of hard rock, something like
Bad Company, though the sound Bad Company gets is much better than what we got. I was
using a Gretsch White Falcon and a Cordovox Leslie and a self made amp. I didn't know how
to make one, I just did it. It had two speakers, and I had the Leslie miked up through two
Elco speakers; they were Italian speakers something like JBL has, with the big ducts for
the high tones. I miked that up stereo. You have that wheel turning around in the
Cordovox, one on the bottom, one in the middle, and one on top so actually it is
triophonic. I was really into that, having the whole stage with cabinets like that and the
sound turning all around like a rainbow.
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| Would you like to pursue that sound more now? |
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Yes, I'm still developing.
Leslies are my thing. I forgot about the Leslie sound when I left the Brainbox because I
thought it wasn't original, and when I left they got two other guys who used them so I
just said forget it. I've just started using them again, and they're so lovely, so
beautiful; that sound, that rotating sound, you can't get it with no phaser, with nothing.
It's so alive, it just spreads it around.
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| What was the guitar scene like in Amsterdam? |
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Oh, jazz, jazz. We never
listened to English guitar players except maybe The Shadows and Clapton. I was into jazz
and rock and roll. When I heard somebody like Beck or Clapton playing they just dated what
I was already doing. I was doing it before them, as simple as that. The sound of Clapton
was always beautiful, brilliant, but I was listening to Django Reinhardt, Tal Farlow, Bola
Sete, Julian Bream, mostly jazz guitar players though; Larry Coryell I really liked.
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| Do you think your playing is more jazz influenced now? |
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No, I've stayed a rock
player, but with another choice of notes - European maybe, whatever European means. I do
play different from all guitar players I've heard; of course, one person always plays
different from another. I'm different rhythmically, technically, and harmonically, also
mentally. I might say so, yeah, I'm a technical player from what I hear around me, but
just technique is not my trip. It's musical technique. Like playing beautiful things, but
also technically perfect. I'm not talking about speed because I have that also very much,
but I'm talking about tone, about getting the tone out with the right amount of
brilliance, the right attack of the pick, the right vibrato.
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| You've developed certain picking techniques then? |
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Yes, sometimes I attack that
guitar, and sometimes I play with my thumb and half the pick.
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| What type of guitar are you using now? |
 It's an old Les Paul, a very
special one. I've had everything taken off, and I've had maple overlaid on the body. I
think it's a '70 or '71 - it's not that old. It doesn't have to be necessarily old for a
good guitar. I think the new Gibsons are as good as the old ones, only - just as with the
old ones - you have to do your own thing with it. You got to have it shaved, you have to
have it this and that. No new guitar is perfect, never, ever. I've got thirty guitars you
see, old Gibsons, new Gibsons, Gretsches, and I love them all. I put in new frets because
the frets were not right; I like them half-medium thick but right up there, edgy, so
they're square against the fretboard, not round. I don't like the frets when they're
rounded because it's too difficult to play the way I play. I like to have the frets
straight. The neck has been flattened; also the action, because it was too round. With
these square frets a bit high up, and the neck flattened it gives a better tone, it's more
in pitch, and if you use good frets with it, it sinks more and plays easier. I've put on
those German tuning pegs, Schaller, but I like Grovers a lot. Everything which is built
nowadays in that area is good, and it'll get better. I've also had the pickups rewired so
they get more treble, I use treble more than maybe any other guitar player I know.
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| Why did you design your own guitar for Framus? |
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As a rock guitarist I always
liked to play a big hollowbody guitar, but couldn't, just because of the feedback. But on
the Framus, since the neck and bar run through the entire length of the guitar, it doesn't
feed back. The shape I kept between the Les Paul model and hollowbody guitar. The neck is
wider at the top so bending strings in lower positions is easier. The head is shaped
concisely, so the strings don't touch each other, and they can ring without interference.
They're Ernie Ball too: .008, .001, etc.
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| You use a unique set-up for amplification. |
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I'm developing now a new kind
of approach in using amps. I'm using the Crowns as slave amps and a pre-amp - totally
studio equipment. I also use six Leslies and two big Fender solid-state amps; the old
transistor things. They don't build them anymore. Now I'm using JBL speakers and Fender
cabinets. The Crowns are really powerful. I use two, stereo, so that's four times 600
watts, and I've put very high- powered speakers in the Leslies: JBLs. They're just regular
Leslies, but I've done something to the motor: I've switched systems. I've taken the amps
out and driven them directly into the speakers and drivers - better sound quality - and
I'm using the JBLs in the Fender cabinets. I have four ten-inch JBLs in each cabinet. I
like having that much power, always.
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| Don't you ever get carried away with all that wattage? |
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That's what I want exactly.
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| Where do you put the tone controls? |
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It's hard to explain. I use a
little preamp to boost the treble up, a Colorsound. It's not such a good thing, but still
for me it's the only thing to use. Right now I'm working on another thing to get the
treble out. I've got a stereo phaser so that it phases slightly from left to right
especially with these.
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| Have you ever tried using a Fender if you like that treble sound? |
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Sometimes I did, but it's not
my guitar. Maybe I'd like a combination between one big humbucker pickup and one Strat to
get that brilliance. But I still want to get that belly sound: "Oomph," that fat
sound with the brilliance on top; real screaming sound that really goes through your
bones. I've not found a guitar yet that can do that, but the one I've got now is on the
way. I've taken all the stuff off that Les Paul, all the pots that were all over, put a
maple deck on it, then the humbuckers were put back on, the old tone and volume knobs, and
the universal switch. I put a new bridge on without the Tune-O-Matic; I like that better.
Strings should be pulled and not drawn down to the body, because it takes away the
sustain. I use Ernie Ball, they're the best: .008, .011, .014, .022, .030 and .038. It's
really thin, but I like it like that because you have to play very clean on it, very
secure like on a violin. You have to have the perfect touch. These thick strings do have
an attack, but I like to have them smooth and still have that punch.
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| Don't the strings tend to give too much? |
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No, because I never vibrate
by pulling up and down on a string but by sliding back and forth within the fret. And with
a thinner string it's much more beautiful; it's more spacey. I use both, let's be
straight; but once I get to the point of actually playing a tune, I play it the sliding
way. Every song has a different approach.
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| Do you use any pedals for other effects? |
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No, just one for the speeds
on the Leslies to get more tremolo and more chorale.
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| What type of equipment do you use in the studio? |
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Half of what I use on stage.
You know, this time I'm in love with that amp, and the next time I'm in love with another
amp for that album - I'm changing constantly.
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| Do you feel you're able to achieve all you want to through Focus? |
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Yes I do. Focus is for me one
of the few groups who know how to catalyse love for music and voice. We get into the
theatrics strictly through the music, like with "Hocus Pocus." I wouldn't take
my guitar off or anything like that, but for the people that do that's OK. Everybody has
to make his own way up to heaven, I guess. I don't know what that has to do with guitar
playing; I don't feel for that. Geographically the guitar is a very difficult instrument.
A piano is all before you. You see it laid there and there, black and white. On guitar you
have these strange scales, and you have this one hand to make bass and melody and
accompany, and that's really difficult. I think the guitar is geographically more
difficult than the piano, especially when you read music. Just a few musicians know how to
read well and to grab that chord and that chord.
I've got my own hang-ups about the guitar. If people didn't like my playing that wouldn't
be an excuse to quit. That would be all right.
All the files in this page was kindly sent by Tom Watson
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