Les Aldridge - Guitar and Beastly Tones

Les was born and raised in Bloomington, Illinois.  His first interest in music initially started at  6 years old, listening and copying a couple of old albums on a Hammond air organ!  Les' first real desire to want to play guitar came at 12 years old when his grandmother showed him some of the basic chords and said that "if it sounds good to listen to, play it and work on it!"

The desire grew intense at 21, when Les found that playing live was the release that he needed to pursue being in a band that was going to be playing their music and not covering other tunes. Les has played in other bands with Tim McClelland (ex-Low Twelve) and also in Broken Altar, a progressive metal band with former Low Twelve drummer - Wes Pollock.

He joined forces with Low Twelve in December of 1998 and has made huge contributions ever since.  Not only is he an important member of the band, but he's the mechanic and master driver of the official Low Twelve van.  Once on a road trip, Les spearheaded the operation of changing out a bad radiator in less than 50 minutes! 

His trademark brutal guitar tone remains a definitive piece of the Low Twelve sound.

Les' Arsenal

amps: Randall RH200-SC, Mini-Marshall for home practice

processors/misc: Art SGE Mach II, Furman light module, Arion stage tuner, Nady wireless, Anvil flight cases

cabinets: Marshall 4 x 12" - two of 'em (aka "classic cabinets")

strings: GHS Fatties, Boomers and Rogue - 9's

picks: Handmade stainless steel picks made by Will Carmack

guitars: Kramer custom painted & carved 6-string Baretta, and Kramer 6-string Semi-V ST-1 Strike

More stuff about Les...

The top 5 bands in his CD collection: 

"Death, Testament, Pantera, more Death, Testament, Pantera"

One musician that got him interested in playing guitar: 

"Ed Van Halen really opened my mind up on Van Halen's first album, what a guitar tone from hell. Yes this dates me back to high school days . . . you figure it out."

What is Les' favorite Low Twelve song to play live? 

"I like each one of our songs equally to play, but some of the new ones like Not Forgotten has a lot of unique things that we three each throw in to make them stand out."