The world of True Temperament fans is growing steadily and we are constantly getting new contacts and users, a big thank you to all of you. Many of you share and recommend us in your networks, which is invaluable to us, but it also requires us to answer questions about how True Temperament works, the feel and playability, etc. and to be honest, we have been a little bad at giving answers every time. But one day Fredrik reached out and offered to make some video recordings about the most common questions, which became the beginning of a very nice friendship and you can find all the videos on our YouTube channel.

But now over to Fredrik Pihl!

Hello Fredrik and thank you very much for everything you help us with! How did your career as a guitarist start?

Thank you, it has been a real pleasure and a fun challenge to answer the questions as simply as possible. My love for the guitar started at the age of 12 when I got a Kingston Strat-copy. Bands such as Metallica and Guns N’ Roses were the big heroes of mine and I tried to imitate everything they played. My interest kept growing, but my own playing was a bit on idle, so I took evening lessons at a local music school to get some sort of order in what I was doing. My friends and I formed a band and dreamed the big dreams of one day standing on the big stages, but we probably weren’t that serious at first.

By the time I was 17 or 18 I was completely hooked and decided to take this more seriously and started taking private lessons. My influences were now players like: Steve Vai , Yngwie Malmsteen and Allan Holdsworth so there was a lot to practice. One of my teachers was Mattias IA Eklundh from Freak Kitchen, whom I took private lessons from as well as attending his Freak Guitar Camp that he does every summer in the forest outside Gothenburg. Mattias also introduced me to True Temperament frets when we met at the Fuzz Guitar Show in Gothenburg.
Mattias told me about all the benefits of True Temperament and I immediately became very interested and curious. I learned an incredible amount and also had the chance to play several guitars with True Temperament and I was completely hooked. That was a big reason why I contacted you many years later, since I realized that there were probably other players asking the same questions I did e.g. “Is it harder to play with TT frets, do you get used to them quickly, how does the intonation work”, etc.

Can you describe that feeling when you got to try playing Mattia’s guitar, now he has his own brand Freak Guitar Lab, but back then it was probably his signature guitar from Caparison?

That’s right, it was one of his 6 string Apple Horn guitars and the feeling of trying the True Temperament was wonderful, the first thing that hit me was that it felt like playing a regular straight fret guitar, I probably thought the True Temperament frets would be difficult for me. But everything felt right and I heard a difference right away, this is what a guitar should sound like and you don’t have to work as hard to achieve what you set out to do. I just wanted to play more and more and now I look forward to trying his ULV guitar, the craftsmanship looks amazig!  
Today I play almost exclusively on my guitars with True Temperament frets, a Fender Stratocaster with a TT replancement neck, a Strandberg Boden 6 string as well as the Per Nilsson Singularity signature Strandberg guitar.

How have things progressed with the dreams of the big stages then?

Ha ha, it wasn’t the biggest stages, although some of the bands I played in managed to get a bit down the road and I’ve had the honor of playing and working with many of the greats. Now I am a middle aged man and my focus has slightly changed, but my love for playing the guitar just keeps growing. Today I combine my job as a teacher with working as a musician. I do plenty of studio work for bands and artists from all over the world. I’m currently working on a new EP as a solo artist and we have just formed a new band, Mytheral, with me on guitar, Mikael Larsson on keyboards and Jenny Winstedt on vocals. We are also writing and recording songs for what is to be our first album.

Here I still feel that you are a bit humble, you have released a whole bunch of singles as a solo artist, several in different bands and you have appeared on several compilation albums. But above all, you get a lot of praise for your way of playing from greats like Jordan Ruddess, Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, Jeff Scott Soto & Mattias IA Eklundh to name a few!

Yes, some things have happened along the way that I am very grateful for when you look in the rearview mirror, but it was easier to list everything on the website  than to sit here and talk about it : -)

So maybe your new metal band constellation, Mytheral, will be the big hit. When will we hear more from you?

Yes the dream is always there but first I will release a solo single on the 25th of September entitled Trinity Light, which is going to be part of my upcoming solo EP next year. The Mytheral album will most likely be out next year as well.

Thank you Fredrik for this pleasant chat and it feels like there is every reason to come back in the future, good luck!

Thank you and we’ll see you soon at the True Temperament factory in Trollhättan