Thanks for the kind words!
1) I was spending a summer, probably around ´95/´96, watching Cliff 'em all video that I had borrowed from a buddy of mine as well as a Black SAbbath video and (as always back then) every Iron Maiden video, and all three bands had very prominent bass players. Maybe not technical marvels by today's standards, but at least leading roles in their respective bands, to some extent ground breaking and definitely looked the part. I was just stricken by how cool it looked as the were hammering the basses with the finger picking. You also have to remember that this was 1995 and nobody wanted to play bass. It was extremely uncool and everybody who id it di d so only because tey sucked at guitar and still wanted to be in the band so they played the root notes at low volumes (/endrant). So I simply decided that I want to do this because nobody is and I decided to get get pretty darn good at it too. That is how it started, although I didn't get into serious practising until afte I wsa introduced t bands like Symphony X, Yngwi Malmsteen and Dream Theater.
2) Nope, none and nobody in my family does either. No talent or natural born here, just countless hours of hard work at home. It did help to expand my horizons and challenge me as a player the years I plyed with/studied for Marcel Jacob although at that time my technique was already pretty good, but he made me a better musician. In addition to that it has been great to always have been challenged by Johan and we always tried to top each other and he has taught me much.
3) After struggling in the studio on our demos and our two first albums with poor intonation and stuff I was finally in a position where I could afford to by a really good instrument. I read up on some stuff and went to music stores and played afew different models, among others ZON and MTD. I liked the MTD best and decided to go all in and order a custom made one where I decided on the exact measures for virtually everything like scale, stin spacing etc. Very happy with it. It is very light weight, a precision tool if you will, with still a warm and natural sounding tone and smooth to play.
4) That of course depends on what level you are currently at, but the basic tip is to never "cheat". Never think you don't have to practise something slowly. If you think you got some mean chops down, try recording your quick chops along a metronome, and then slow it down and listen to your timing. My guess is you will be horrified at what you hear -I know I was. Always work ridiculously slow. One of the technically meanest guitar players I have ever met (Jon Björk) constantly used to wrk through the different modes of the C-major scale in fourth notes in 60 bpm, so I did too!
Other things that might help you to do a leap forward is to five into something new. Like practise a different style of music for a while or larn a technique you curretly don't master, like spend a summer incorporating another finger ino your playing, learn arpeggios, music theory or slapping. Those things usually propell you as I find it.
Good luck!
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