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MARIO'S EXISTENCE
I was born and raised in Hoek van Holland, a place where lots of good bands were 'born'. One of them was called JENNIFER. A great band with a very skilled guitar player (also called Mario ;-) The band played a lot of covers, one of those was the song 'Black Night', and I fell in love with that song. I was 14 years old and played for about two years already. I started to practice for about 6 hours a day, 'till my fingers bled. Very soon I was able to play all the things that Ritchie played. Then I started to search for skilled musicians who also wanted to play the 'In Rock' stuff. The searching really was a nightmare ;-(
EARLY INFLUENCES
I am influenced by Ritchie of course, but also Jimi Hendrix, Jan Akkerman, Jeff Beck, Michael Schenker, Uli Roth. Later George Lynch and Yngwie Malmsteen. I still listen to those guys. I really hated the grunge 'hype' (Curt Koppijn ;-)), they all were posers and not real musicians.
MARIO'S PAST
Really too much to mention, but a few of my previous bands are DEALEN, BIG ANOUSHKA SESSIE BAND (the band where I met Sabine) and A.J.MHARYO.
I also studied two years on the Rotterdam Conservatory, but that was not my piece of shit because I wanted to play live on stage instead of playing in front of a class. Funny thing is that I taught guitar during my whole life as a guitarist. At the time I was working for "Music Store", I had about 60 students in one week in my class. |
HOW MARIO STARTED PURPLE RAINBOW
When I was young everybody said to me: "You stole that riff from Ritchie". Mostly I got mad because I didn't steel the riff. I just played the same style funny enough. Later I got used to it and took it as a compliment. Some years ago I thought: "Why not play it official, and play some of the best songs that where ever written?!". The only problem was to find good musicians and they also had to like Deep Purple and Rainbow songs. In the mean time I had the first gig organized, but still not completed the band. But all things fell in place when I finally met the other Purple Rainbow boys (and of course lady Sabine). The rest of the story is history...
MARIO'S GEAR
Lot's of Fender Stratocasters:
• Black Fender 1970
• 2 Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Strats (blond en cream colored)
• Ritchie Blackmore Signature Strat
• Left-handed Strat
• ShoreLine Gold (very rare !!)
• American Standard Strat (four of those, with DiMarzio pickups en scalloped fret board)
• Lots of guitar accessories, which are mostly used as spare parts, in case things don't survive on stage ;-))
• Amps: Marshall JMT 45 (I love it, I need it!). Marshall 4x12" speaker cabs
• Bunch of pedals
LIST OF OLD TIME FAVOURITES
Everything of Deep Purple and Rainbow, my favourites are 'In Rock' and 'On Stage'.
LIST OF 'NEW' FAVOURITES
Blackmore's Night and G3 ;-)
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