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Juuso is a 16 year old guitar player from Espoo, Finland.
Juuso has been playing guitar for about 18 months and is totally self taught,
he learned playing guitar
just by listening to music and reading articles on the
internet about it. Juuso bought his first guitar, a used Ibanez RX (strat
shaped guitar with a tremolo bar),
because he had in school an opportunity to raise his music
number. His Ibanez had one humbucker pickup in the bridge and two single
coils in the neck and in the
middle position. Although it wasn't very good, his Ibanez
gave him the opportunity to improve his guitar playing.
On last September Juuso bought a new guitar, a Tokai Love
Rock-Model which is a Gibson Les Paul Standard copy with flamed maple top.
The Tokai comes
loaded with two Gotoh pickups and Juuso plugs it into
a 15 Watt Crate GX15R amp using a Zoom 505 II multi-effect processor between
the guitar and the
amp.
Juuso started playing only with his fingers but now he
plays with Dunlop picks favoring the Blue Gator 1.14mm model. Juuso strings
his guitar with D'Addario
0.09 set.
Juuso has a school band and he hopes that music will be
his profession in his future!
Here's Juuso describing on his own words his main influences
and how he started getting into Guns N' Roses and Slashs guitar playing:
"Slash didn't really influence me so much when I started
to play guitar. My great idol was Mark Knopfler with his band Dire Straits.
Mark Knopfler doesn't use a
pick and so I learned how to play without one. Later
came Eddie Van Halen with his tapping technique, Brian May, I played many
very popular songs from
different artists for example Led Zeppelin's Stairway
To Heaven and Eagles' Hotel California and then at last about two months
ago I started to listen Guns N'
Roses. I found a list of 100 greatest Guitar Solos
of All Time from the Net. Guns N' Roses: November Rain was no 5 in the
list so I wanted to hear it. That's
how it began. I really liked November Rain so I
wanted to hear more Guns N' Roses. The second song that I heard was Sweet
Child O' Mine which is maybe
my favorite song. Then I found the tab of Sweet
Child O' Mine and started to play it. It was really something! Since that
I've played GN'R songs and I think that
my favorite song is either November Rain or Sweet
Child O' Mine."!
Young guitar players who weren't around when Guns N' Roses
were big seem to discover Guns N' Roses and admire Slashs guitar playing
even now!
I'm sure Slash will influence generations to come and
guitar players like Juuso will spread again all the great rock riffs and
solos that right now everybody seems
to ignore. Keep rockin' Juuso!
The info above was submitted in 6-3-02
Juuso Heljaste email: juuso08@luukku.com
Update: 13-4-02 - Juuso has loaded his guitar with Seymour Duncan
Alnico II Pro pickups!