When people think 'Strandberg', chances are they think 'Plini' at the same time. After all, the Australian virtuoso is the brand's poster boy. After one fateful day when first discovered a headless Boden 7-string backstage after an Intervals show, he has since gone on to add a few tasty Strandbergs to his lineup – not to mention a raft of signature models under his belt.
He’s one of the most avid proponents of headless guitars, even telling Guitar World at NAMM why he finds such designs so appealing.
Now, in a more recent conversation about his Strandberg origins with Lee Anderton from Andertons Music Co., Plini reflects, “I'd been playing Ibanez for years and years and recorded music with it, and thought, ‘Okay, it's time to get an even better guitar.’
“And I'd narrowed it down to a John Petrucci signature. I [also] really like the look of Parker Flys, but I don't think I could find one to even try in Australia. And then I saw that Misha [Mansoor] and Tosin [Abasi] and this band, Scale the Summit, were all using Strandbergs. I was like, ‘Oh, this whack-looking thing must be good if all these guys are using it.’”
As for the Mansoor influence, Plini mentions a specific period where the Periphery guitarist “would just have every guitar under the sun and play them and talk about them”. The similarities between the pair's expansive styles meant the Strandberg concept was a no-brainer for Plini.
“And so at the time, Ola [Strandberg] was doing them in his garage, like one by one, and then had just started to do production, so I emailed him and lied about how good I was,” Plini quips. “I was like, ‘I need to skip the waiting list to get a Strandberg.’ And he was tricked. They did two at the same time – one went to Misha, from an old US factory, which they don't use anymore.”
Summing up his relationship with the Strandberg guitars and brand, Plini is quick to say that, “Anytime I come across someone who's not married to a guitar company, I'm like, ‘Try this,’ and pretty much everyone who has tried it is used to it within a couple of minutes.”
In more recent Strandberg news, the brain behind the brand, Ola, discussed the headless guitar revolution and how he managed to change the concept of guitar design in the process.
