Christian Olde Wolbers

Christian Olde Wolbers
Born	5 August 1972 (1972-08-05) Antwerp, Belgium
Genres	Heavy metal, rockabilly, psychobilly, hip hop
Occupations	Songwriter, musician, producer, engineer
Instruments	Songwriter, guitar, bass, upright bass, beatmaker
Years active	1987–present
Labels	Koch
Associated acts	Arkaea, Fear Factory, Kush, Cypress Hill, Beowülf

Christian Olde Wolbers (born 5 August 1972, Antwerp, Belgium), is the guitarist of the metal band Arkaea. He is the former bassist and guitarist of the industrial metal band Fear Factory, and is now in Beowülf.

Biography

Olde Wolbers was born in Belgium (though he has Dutch citizenship), and moved to the US in 1993. He was asked to join Fear Factory in December 1993 as a bass player. He recorded five albums with them. The group disbanded in 2002 and when it reformed in 2003, Olde Wolbers had switched to guitar, replacing Dino Cazares. In 2009, Olde Wolbers and drummer Raymond Herrera parted ways with Fear Factory when vocalist Burton C. Bell chose to reform Fear Factory with Dino Cazares, bassist Byron Stroud, and drummer Gene Hoglan.

Olde Wolbers is currently working on musical project Arkaea with fellow ex- Fear Factory drummer Raymond Herrera along with Jon Howard and Pat Kavanagh of the band Threat Signal. On 14 July 2009, Arkaea's debut album, Years in the Darkness was released.

Olde Wolbers is now in Beowülf, where he co-produced their 2011 album Jesus Freak.

Contributions

He contributed upright bass to Devin Townsend's second album Infinity in 1998. In 2006, he helped produce and mix Mnemic's third album, Passenger, and also produced Bleed the Sky's Murder the Dance and Threat Signal's debut album, Under Reprisal. In 2008 he produced End of the Rope's new album, "Til It Bleeds" and in 2009, Wolbers produced Years in the Darkness for Arkaea. He filled in as live guitarist for Korn for the first three shows of their European tour. He appears as a guest guitar player on the EP This World by breakbeat production group The Autobots. He produced the vocals for God Forbid's Earthsblood, co-wrote and played bass on Snoop Dogg's album Paid tha Cost to Be da Boss. He helped Cypress Hill with their rock outfit and wrote songs for their Stoned Raiders and Skull & Bones albums. He also played on 2 songs on Soulfly's debut in 1998.

Equipment

Olde Wolbers has a number of custom guitars made by Jackson, including seven-string guitars, his first two sevenstring guitars were built by Jackson's master builder Mike Shannon in 2003. Besides his production Signature 7 and 6 string models (colors: Black, Desert Camo, Red, Silverburst, Jackson built at least 12 Custom shop 7 string guitars for Christian, most of which he received, that includes: Soloist: Natural finish - Mahogany (used in the "Bite The Hand That Bleeds" video); Black - (used in the "Cyberwaste" video); Red (now with a sticker next to the bridge); Silverburst with Floyd Rose bridge (used in the "Archetype" video); Silverburst with Floyd Rose bridge and blue led inlays;

King V: Black Black with a floyd Rose;

Kelly: Burst with a Floyd Rose;

The guitars that Christian did not get: Soloist Black with black hardware; Soloist Desert Camo - Christian got it with a broken headstock and it was later repaired sold on eBay; Soloist Silverburst with a TOM bridge; Red King V;

he also had 2 seven-string guitars made by ESP That belonged to Stephen Carpenter and one custom made by Hufschmid Guitars. He uses Randall amplifiers, including a V2 Guitar Amp Head and an XL Series RS125XL 260W, 2x12. Randall released an Olde Wolbers signature amp, the V2 Archetype.^{[citation needed]}

In his bassist days, he used a Japanese Ibanez Soundgear SR-885 bass, and his photo with it was printed in Ibanez catalogues.

Discography

With Fear Factory

• Demanufacture (1995) (live bassist)
• Obsolete (1998) (bassist)
• Digimortal (2001) (bassist)
• Archetype (2004) (guitarist/bassist)
• Transgression (2005) (guitarist/bassist)

With Arkaea

• Years in the Darkness (2009) (guitarist)

Guest appearances

• Devin Townsend - Infinity (1998) (upright bass)
• Roadrunner United - The All Star Sessions (2005) (bass on The Dagger, Independent (Voice of the Voiceless), The Rich Man and Army of the Sun)
• Threat Signal - Under Reprisal (2006) (additional keyboards and vocals)
• on the "Bones" version from the Skull & Bones album by Cypress Hill.

Production credits

• Threat Signal - Under Reprisal (2006)
• Bleed the Sky - Murder the Dance (2007)
• Mnemic - Passenger (2007)
• End of the Rope - Till it Bleeds (2008)
• Arkaea - Years in the Darkness (2009)
• God Forbid - Earthsblood(2009)
• Our Last Enemy - Fallen Empires (2010)
• Beowülf - Jesus Freak (2011)
• Sunflower Dead - (2011)

Sport

As a teenager Olde Wolbers was a goalkeeper at the youth academy of Belgian professional football club Germinal Ekeren, and was the team's reserve goalkeeper for several games in the Belgian Second Division. He was suspended for having long hair and tattoos at the age of 17 due to the conservativeness of the club, and chose instead to concentrate on his music career. Since moving to the United States, Olde Wolbers has played regularly for the Los Angeles-based amateur team Hollywood United, and currently plays for Angel City FC in the semi-professional Los Angeles Premier League.

Olde Wolbers is also the founder and owner of Aviata Sports, an international sportswear company which specializes in manufacturing goalkeeper gloves. Aviata gloves are worn in Major League Soccer by Josh Saunders of Los Angeles Galaxy, the Belgian Jupiler Pro League, La Liga, Eredivisie in the Netherlands, the Barclays Premier League, and many more leagues all over the world.

External links

• Christian Olde Wolbers at MySpace
• Christian Olde Wolbers guitar rig including Guitar World scan.