Some of the biggest names in music play Laney; From KillSwitch Engage to Led Zepellin!
Laney amplification officially started in 1967, and in 1968 Robert Plant (Led Zepellin) bought a Laney PA system, and later that year he recorded the first Led Zepellin album. From then onward, Laney has always had some of the biggest names in the music industry proudly using their amps and PA systems.
Who uses Laney Amps today?
JOEL STROETZL – KILLSWITCH ENGAGAE
Joel Stroetzel is the lead guitarist in metalcore band KillSwitch Engage.
He was born in 1980 and started learning the guitar as a teenager, subsidising his income by giving guitar lessons at his local music store. He attended Westfield High school and played in the school jazz band.
After school, Joel Stroetzel attended the Berklee College of music in Boston but did not graduate. However, it was while attending Berklee that he met Adam Dutkiewicz and started playing in Aftershock a metalcore band. When the band split up in 1999, Joel Stroetzel and Dutkiewicz formed KillSwitch Engage.
KillSwitch Engage were originally a four piece band but increased to five members after line-up changes. The band uses two guitarists and Joel Stroetzel’s fellow guitar player is now Adam Dutkiewicz – who started off playing drums in the band.
Aftershock did reform as a side project in 2001 for a reunion tour of Japan and is best known for its hit 2001 single from the “Five Steps From Forever” EP, titled “For Those Of You Who Kill”. Aftershock finally came to an end in 2004.
Joel Stroetzel has been a constant presence in KillSwitch Engage along with bassist Mike D’Antonio, from 1999 until the present day and the band have released five albums to date.
TONY IOMMI – BLACK SABBATH
Tony Iommi is synonymous with heavy rock, having more or less invented the genre single-handedly with the dark and doom of Black Sabbath.
Born on February 19, 1948, in Birmingham, England, Iommi picked up the guitar after being inspired by the likes of Hank Marvin & the Shadows as a teenager. By 1967, Iommi had played with several blues-based rock bands, and formed a group (Earth) with three old acquaintances from his school days, bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler, drummer Bill Ward, and singer John “Ozzy” Osbourne.
But Iommi’s musical career was nearly derailed prematurely when he suffered a horrible accident at a sheet metal factory, when a machine sliced off the tips of the fingers on his right hand.
DANIEL LIONEYE – HIM
Mikko Viljami “Linde“ Lindstrom (also known as Lily Lazer and Daniel Lioneye) has played guitar as a founding member of the Finnish alternative rock band HIM since 1991.
Lindstrom was given a guitar at an early age, and when he was fifteen years old, he attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Lindstrom is known to have a particular fondness of Guns ‘N’ Roses guitar hero Slash as well as Steve Vai.
HIM, in its current incarnation, has been around since the mid-90s, when Ville Valo, Mikko Paananen (aka Mige Amour) and Mikko Lindstrom (aka Lily Lazer, Daniel Lioneye, or simply Linde) founded His Infernal Majesty.
HIM latest release, Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice is the seventh studio album from the band and is heavily influenced by the band’s frontman Ville Valo’s relationships that have since ended. Ville Valo describes Screamworks as “representing a cathartic, primal scream; it’s a big middle finger; it’s **** off, I want to do what I want to do”.
ROBERT PLANT – LED ZEPELLIN
Robert Plant grew up in Halesowen and gained interest in singing at a young age. In 1966 Robert Plant left home, left work to pursue his music career. By 1967 he cut three singles for CBS records and sang with a variety of bands, including The Crawling King Snakes, which brought him in contact with drummer John Bonham and together formed the Band of Joy band, with sounds from merging blues with newer psychedelic trends.
By early 68, Robert Plant’s psychedelic dream came to an end, when Bonham left Band of Joy to tour with Tim Rose. During the same time, Jimmy Page was in search for a lead signer for his band, The Yardbirds and met Robert Plant after turning down his first choice.
Plant and Page immediately hit it off with a shared musical passion and after Plant joined the band they began their writing collaboration with reworkings of earlier blues songs. Plant also brought in John Bonham as drummer and with John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page’s fellow session player.
Initially dubbed the New Yardbirds in 1968, the band soon came to be known as Led Zeppelin, and the self-titled debut album in 1969 is widely credited as the progenitors of heavy metal hard rock genres. However, the band’s style drew from many sources and transcends any one genre. To date, Led Zeppelin is held in high regards for their artistic achievements, commercial success, and broad influence.
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