#9- JEFF KOLLMAN

Jeff Kollman was born in Toledo, Ohio, and lived there until at least 1985 when he was gratuated in High School. He started playing guitar in the late seventies, and now he lives in Los Angeles, California.

His initial musical influences include Jimi Hendrix, but he was interested in a broader range of music, king's X, Pat Martino, Big Band, Bebop, Brazilian music, Tower of Power and Messugah!

Jeff has been a Solo artist, a member of Edwin Dare, fusion trio Cosmosquad, Mogg/way's and Glenn Hughes. Jeff also played with the Michael Schenker group on the G3 tour with Joe Satriani and Uli Jon Roth.

Jeff Kollman grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Influenced by Larry Carlton and Eddie Van Halen among others guitarists and rock groups. He started playing for a local school band called “The Stain”.
Jeff Kollman’s playing was getting very accomplished in the Edwin Dare early albums period. With Edwin Dare band, Kollman was open up to big bands such Cinderella, Warrant, Foreigner, Dream Theatre, etc.
‘Schizoid’ was released at the end of ‘89 and from this he started to get quite a lot of attention. In 1990 he won the contest for the Guitar Practising Musician Magazine Contest.
He had problems to have a record deal so in the 90’s he decided to move to Arizona, New York and Nashville where the real music industry was.
He went to Phoenix, Arizona for a few months – he had family there so he stayed for a time. There were probably only 4 or 5 main studios in phoenix; but a lot of serious rock stars and players lived there, and used these places like Alice Cooper, Michael Schenker, George Lynch or Lyle Lovitt. He called these places up and he found himself working regularly. He met Shane Gaalass and Barry Sparks; they were working for Michael Schenker at the time. They played a few sessions together. That was where the basis of Cosmosquad was formed, and they had definite ideas about being instrumentally intense.
After these precipitous meetings, Jeff commenced on the next leg of his journey and arrived in Los Angeles in 1996.
When Shane Gaalaas decided to go to Los Angeles they rented a house together. They set up a studio (in the garage) where “Shedding Skin” Album and all the later Cosmosquad albums were recorded.
The way he broke into the L.A. scene was through introductions to other musicians and gigs from his first contacts – like Shane Gaalaas. He did a record for Mike Varney’s shrapnel records right away when he first moved to L.A. – that was with the singer John West. Shane and Jeff then got the gig G3 tour in Europe playing with Michael Schenker. Mike Varney then called him to do the Mogg/Way record with the members of UFO.
Over the years he has played with people like Kenny Arranoff, Matt Rollings, Reggie Hamilton, Steve Pocaro, David Paich, Billy Sheehan, Munyungo Jackson, Karen Briggs, Chad smith, jerry Douglas. Recording artists including Jill Scott, Lyle Lovitt, Linda McCartney, Wayman Tisdale, Steve Vai, Joe Lynn turner, UFO, Glenn Hughes and Michael Schenker.
He also has been doing a lot of film work including Slither, Beerfest, Failure to Launch, Sahara, brother bear, Garfield 2, The Marine, Clerks 2, You Me & Dupree and Poseidon.
In 2001 Jeff recorded the album “Live At The Baked Potato” with Cosmosquad, which it is one of the best live performance of any live record of instrumental guitar. In this same year he releases with the same formation “Quadrophenia”.
Almost as soon as Jeff arrived in Los Angeles he became involved in a musical scene of veteran (primarily UK) rock stars – including Phil Mogg, UFO vocalist and leader, and the great ‘voice of rock’ Glenn Hughes, holder of arguably the most soulful larynx in the rock arena for the last 30 years.

Jeff has been particularly active in recent years with some more vocally orientated projects, The Crumb Brothers and The Jeff Kollman Band. These bands are very different to his solo albums and Cosmosquad. The Crumb Brothers is Jeff Kollman, Mark Renk on Vocals and Shane Gaalaas on drums – it’s compared to the likes of Radiohead, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin.
The Jeff Kollman Band is composed with Charlie Waymire on drums, and Kevin Chown on bass. This band is a raw power trio; heavy, rocky and dynamic. Jeff sings as well as playing guitar in this band.
He toured out with Glenn Hughes in November 2006. He played in the well received Glenn Hughes album ‘Music For The Divine’.
Also He released a live Jeff Kollman CD titled ‘Guitar Screams Live!’ which was available since October 2006.

He is currently guitarist for Cosmosquad, The Bombastic Meabats, Pervadelic, JKB, Mogg & The Sign Of 4, Tizer, Crumb Bros, and Solo artist. He is also the guitarist for the former Edwin Dare and a Producer, songwriter and owner of Marmaduke Records.

Gear

Jeff Kollman has got a 1958 Gibson Les Paul special with P90’s, a 1961 strat, a 71 strat hardtail and Fender Custom Shop ‘Relic’ strat. On the strats he uses Dunlop 6105 frets and for the Les Paul’s 6100 frets. He uses a high pass filter on all his guitars to retain the high end and take out a bit of bottom end and he turns the volume knob down.
Other guitars include a 1980 BC Rich ‘Rico’ model, and a Fender ‘Espirit Ultra’. He also has a 1990 Les Paul Classic 1960 Reissue, which has a coil tap to give some ‘thinning’ of sound.
Acoustic guitars include a Ramirez 1A, Martin and Larrivee steel strings, which he uses for his recordings.
By the end of 2006 Jeff signed with Fender USA Guitars and Amps.

Gear he was currently using:
Fender ‘65 Twin’, with some pedals for rock tones. He also is using Krank amps – He uses the ‘Chadwick’ series Krank which is very versatile. He also has two Bogner modded Marshalls.
He’s got an AC 30 Top Boost, and he uses the Hughes and Kettner ‘ATS 120’ middle channel for that warm /singing lead tone.

Effects
He uses a Fulltone ‘Dejavibe’, the Fulltone ‘Ultimate Octave’, and the TC Electronics ‘Line Drive’ Booster/ Distortion; Xotic pedals, and an Ernie Ball Volume pedal; for the reverbs a Lexicon M1, and a Chandler Digital Echo for delays and a Line 6 rack delay.

Source: Wikipedia

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