Christian Olde Wolbers

Christian Olde Wolbers

Christian Olde Wolbers (born 5 August 1973, Antwerp, Belgium, is the guitarist of the industrial metal band Arkaea. He is the former bassist and guitarist of the industrial metal band Fear Factory.

Biography

Olde Wollbers was born on August 5th 1972 in Kapellen Belgium (though he has [Netherlands/Dutch citizenship]. He played Football in the Youth Academy's for Germinal Ekeren Football club in Antwerp Belgium. After being suspended from the Belgian professional Football Club for getting tattoos and mow-hawks he opened up more to the musical styles and sounds of Suicidal Tendencies and psychobilly. He went onto vacation to the US in 1993 and never returned . He was asked to join Fear Factory in December 1993 as the bass player. He recorded 6 albums with them 3 gold, one silver and 1 platinum. 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 hijack and Fear Factory and reform with Dino Cazares, bassist Byron Stroud, and drummer Gene Hoglan. Olde Wolbers ventured more into the hip hop world where he made beats and worked with the likes of Snoop Dogg, Cypress Hill, Swollen Members,Ice Cube, Chingy,D12,Ludacris,Roni Size,Non Phixion,Everlast,West side Connection and many more.. 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 ventured back in to the football world after his 20 year music venture where he joined Super club Hollywood United FC as a back up keeper and helped with keepers training and daily Activities for the USL PRO PDL team. He also started to develop his own Goal keepers gloves sports business called AVIATA Sports in 2009. Today Aviata Sports goalkeepers gloves are seen in the biggest leagues around the world such as the English barclays Premier league, LA Liga, Belgium's Jupiler Pro League, Dutch Erie Divisie and Dutch Jupiler League, MLS, NASL,USL PRO and many more. Aviata Sports is the fastest newest growing company in the goalkeepers glove world and only the 15th company in the 140 year history of the English Barclays premier league.

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.

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.

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) (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)
• Threat Signal - Under Reprisal (2006) (Additional keyboards and vocals)

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)

External links

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