STEVE HILLAGE

(KHAN, GONG, SYSTEM 7)

“I was nine when I got my first guitar — a little acoustic with steel strings. I learned to play with a pick, and by the time I was 12 I’d got quite good. My first electric guitar was a Watkins Rapier, then finally I managed to get a Fender Stratocaster — my first pro guitar — in ’67. I think it was either a ’62 or a ’63. I gradually found my own thing through a long series of experimentations with tape recorders, and later on I started getting into tape echo and various echo boxes. That’s how I really developed my personal sound and style.”