Marcus Siepen

Marcus was born on September 8th, 1968 in Krefeld, the city he still lives in today. Around the age of 10 or 11 his parents thought it would be a good idea if he learned how to play an instrument. They suggested things like the piano or clarinet, which didn’t sound appealing to him. At that time his interest in music started to grow, and there were two songs playing on the radio which really caught his attention, „Sultans of Swing“ by the Dire Straits and „Another Brick in the Wall“ by Pink Floyd. Since both songs were guitar driven he decided to go for guitar lessons and got his first guitar, a Yamaha classical nylon string guitar, and started taking classical guitar lessons at Krefeld‘s local music school. He enjoyed playing a lot, but at that time he still had no idea how important this instrument would soon become for him.

Together with his passion for guitar playing his interest in music grew and he started to listen to radio programs that played mainly rock music, and when he discovered Iron Maiden and the whole new wave of British heavy metal in 1981 this changed everything for him. From that moment on music became the center of his life and he spent all his money on albums by his favorite bands. When he was not listening to those albums, he was sitting next to his stereo with his acoustic guitar in his hand, trying to figure out all those riffs by Maiden, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Kiss and Deep Purple. He continued to have lessons with his classical guitar, but the impact that Heavy Metal had on him made it obvious that things had to change a bit and he finally got his first electric guitar, a copy of Michael Schenkers famous black and white Flying V, which made playing along to those magical songs way easier.

The next logical step was to form his own band, together with some friends, and write songs. This band went through several lineup and name changes (some names that lasted longer than others were Redeemer, Zodiak and Prophecy) and recorded one demo in 1986. Things didn’t really lead anywhere due to a constant rotation of members. Around that time his band shared the rehearsal room with another local band called Lucifer’s Heritage and when Marcus was invited to jam with them and asked to join the band, everything fell into place.

Marcus has been giving guitar lessons at the online school guitarmasterclass.net for some time and when Frederik asked him if he would be interested in playing a couple of shows with his side band, Sinbreed, he immediately agreed. In 2012 Marcus officially joined Sinbreed and recorded the album „Shadows“ with the band. In late 2014 he left the band again because of conflicting schedules. Every now and then Marcus recorded guest contributions for friends (Heavenward, Reveal, Van Canto or Metacrose to name a few) and in 2019 he was asked to join the current live lineup of Demons and Wizards in which he plays bass.

Marcus is playing Solar guitars, his favorite models are from the S1.6 LTD line. He uses the Synergy Amps modular tube preamps, his preferred modules are the Friedman HBE, the Friedman BB and the Soldano SLO. All his effects come from a Fractal Audio Axe FX II XL.

Marcus is married and has one son. He enjoys traveling and exploring new places. In his spare time, he loves reading books and graphic novels, watching movies or playing computer games, all those things being passions that already started early on in his childhood. He always liked spicy food, he needs his coffee in the morning, and he will never say no to a good glass of Scotch, his favorite drink will always be water though. When it comes to music his philosophy is very simple, for him there are only two kinds of music, the one he likes and the one he doesn’t like; completely independent of what band or style we are talking about.