The Strats are an Irish two piece Blues Rock Band, featuring Will Ludford on guitar and Nigel Brannigan on Keyboards. They are based in Monaghan, Ireland. For more information or to buy the latest CD goto www.thestrats.com .
Will Ludford
Will has been playing guitar for some time, starting in his first band with school friends. They played at local school functions and friends parties. They played music by The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix etc. When Will left school he worked at a garage, serving petrol and saved enough to buy his first Fender Strat. He then joined better local bands and became the guitarist in the Rock Band "Diamond Lil", who did very well on the college circuit in the UK. Will also performed some session work at the now legendary Chalk Farm Studios in London. Will says that one of the highlights of his life was being at the Beatles Apple Headquarters in Saville Row, where he met George Harrison, who encouraged him to go on and further explore his music; he describes George as the nicest man he ever met in music.
After losing a couple of good friends from drug overdoses, Will quit music for a while but is now back full time and lives in a small castle in Co. Monaghan, Ireland
Nigel Brannigan
Nigel took piano lessons at an early age, and he also formed his first band with school friends. after a while Nigel bought an organ-keyboard and a Synth, and joined a band who backed visiting artists to Ireland. Some of the people he backed included John Baldry, The Equals, The Tremeloes among others.
When the bass player left, Nigel had to fill in by playing bass with his left hand on the keyboard; he became so good at this they never replaced the bass player. He now plays two keyboards - he plays bass on one and fills and lead breaks on the other.
Nigel is also a keen autograph collector and has over 10,000. When Will came back to Ireland, he met Nigel through another band and straight away struck up a good friendship and decided to form their own band..
