About / Introduction to AxeKool Guitars

Hello,
My name is Andrew, and thank you for visiting my website. I am the owner of Axekool Guitars and here is a little bit about my background as a musician and a Guitar Tech / Luthier.

I was born in the late 1960’s into a family who loved music with my grandfather repairing old wireless radio sets most of his life. My father was a pioneer of quadraphonic sound and also collected vinyl records and loved the drums and listening to music very load! He built large amplifiers purely for his own entertainment, of which there are many funny stories.

My early childhood memories are me sitting in our living room in Balham, South West London where my Dad had speakers and wiring everywhere across the floor while he was playing with quadraphonic sound and effects making the sound dance from one speaker to another. He was obsessed by sound and music and was always in his workshop at the bottom of the garden with a soldering iron in his hand working on some project or fixing a neighbours record player.

I started getting involved in music as a musician over 25 years ago and purchased a bass guitar, learned a bit and joined a classic rock covers band. I played pretty awfully, but we got paid in beer and had lot of fun. A couple of years later I purchased an electric and acoustic guitar and started doing vocal work and I fell in love with the whole musician thing. I am an acoustic player at heart, but would say my live band talent was being a vocalist and I have worked as a frontman in a few bands including, Rock, Blues and Tribute bands. I am fully retired from the stage now!

With a mechanical, electrical, engineering and IT/graphic design background, repairing and working on guitars became a nice side line, as I found guitars to be creative, but still technical and intricate enough to be interesting to work on. I started repairing guitars when I first became a musician all those years ago. I did repairs via word and mouth and when I recently moved to Gloucestershire I decided to make it a business and give it a name “AxeKool” and a website! I also put together a dedicated guitar workshop which is well equipped for just about anything coming through the door.

I am a perfectionist at heart and have an eye for detail and take a great pride in my guitar work, which is more like a hobby. I keep my prices low and enjoy the projects that turn up in the workshop. My favourite part of the guitar work is electrical, no surprise, as it reminds me of my late Father and Grandfather. I have many regular customers and a few professional musicians from local bands on the books and also a few clients with large guitar collections.

My Own Personal Guitars, Gear & Rig
Although I own a couple of electric guitars (2 x cheap Les Paul’s), I am an acoustic player at heart and own a Martin HD-28 pictured above in the photo, which was taken at the Chateau Denmark in Denmark Street, London where I purchased it new from Dawson’s Guitars Shop. I fitted a L.R. Baggs M80 3D Active Soundhole Pickup to the Martin and then this runs to a L.R. Baggs Venue DI, and then plugs into a Marshall Acoustic AS50D Soloist Amp. I use a Shure Beta 58A Microphone which plugs directly into the same amp. Its a fantastic and very effective setup and suits my purposes for playing at home.

I also own…
Taylor Academy 12e-N Grand Concert Classical
Rosetti Vintage Archtop guitar from the 1960’s, which is a project I am currently working on.
Epiphone AJ15 Acoustic (with upgrades) for teaching, practice and playing at family functions etc.

Thanks for reading
Andrew

AxeKool supports a local charity called Heidi’s Heroes by turning old unwanted guitars into donations Read More

AxeKool guitars are very proud to Recycle and Up-Cycle tools, equipment and products to help with the environment. Read More

AxeKool is completely independent and is not affiliated with any other companies, artists or bands.

“I was cutting them up and modifying the pickups, bridges, controls and just about everything else.
All the things that I wanted just gave them a lot of grey hair up there at Gibson” – Les Paul.