Mark Speer


Mark Speer is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the guitarist and one of the founding members of the musical trio Khruangbin.

Biography

Mark Speer was born November 9, 1979 in Houston, Texas. The first music video he remembers seeing on MTV is Grandmaster Flash’s "The Message", the production of which he found intriguing. At the time, Speer thought that rock and roll music "was terrible". One of the first concerts he attended as a child was that of Parliament-Funkadelic.
Speer initially wanted to play drums but could not afford them, so he started playing bass guitar. Later, he borrowed a four-track cassette recorder from a friend of his dad, and was making tracks with Casio drums by playing them with his fingers. He wanted to put chords on them, so he borrowed a guitar from a friend and started learning jazz fusion chords.
Speer met his future bandmate Donald "DJ" Johnson in 2004 while playing in Rudy Rasmus' St. John's Methodist Church gospel band in Houston, Texas. The church employed Speer as the guitarist and Johnson as the organist. He then met Laura Lee through friends, where they initially connected over a shared love of Afghan music and Middle Eastern architecture. In 2010, Speer and Lee went on tour with Yppah and Bonobo. During this time, they recruited DJ on drums and formed Khruangbin.
Speer has recorded three studio albums with Khruangbin: The Universe Smiles Upon You, Con Todo El Mundo, and Mordechai. His family owns a barn in Burton, Texas where Khruangbin records all their music, while the overdubs are done in SugarHill Recording Studios in Houston.
A notable part of the band's visual style is the black wigs that Speer and his bandmate Lee wear on stage, and during promotional interviews and photoshoots. Originally this was to help them move from the stage to the merchandise stand without being recognised during early tours.

Songwriting, technique and gear

Mark Speer uses a Fender Stratocaster which is the only guitar he has. He replaced its neck pickups with DiMarzio Cruiser and did the same in the bridge position because he wanted to achieve "screaming leads" with his tone. In an interview Speer said he only has one guitar pick which is worn to a round tip. He changes guitar strings once a tour because he does not like the sound of new strings. When Speer got his own guitar he changed the strings and took out the low E and added a 0.9 for his high E, basically installing every string one place higher and adding a thinner high E. He uses the standard EADGBE tuning.
While on studio, Speer uses a Fender Deluxe Reverb guitar amplifier; live, he uses a Fender Custom Deluxe. He connects his guitar into a Dunlop Cry Baby pedal that he never turns off. From there, the connection goes to a Boss DS-1 pedal, and then to a Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail. The reverb effect is a big part of Speer's sound. Live, he uses a Strymon El Capistan for delay with an expression pedal hooked up to the back, and a Nose volume pedal, which allows him to move it with his feet on the board. Sometimes, he uses slow vibrato at the end of the chain to change the pitch.
Speer prefers to compose on bass and drums, instead of guitar. When performing live, he provides occasional vocals for the band.

Influences

Mark Speer has mentioned Roy Ayers, Prince, Roots Radics, Mark Knopfler, Steely Dan, Lata Mangeshkar, Sezen Aksu, and Ernie Isley as his biggest influences. He described Kassav's album Lagué mwen as an album that changed his life. A self-professed "world music nerd" and a devoted crate digger, Speer is interested in music from all over the world, preferring music that is not in the English language. In Khruangbin, Speer tries to replace the lead singer's role with his guitar, so he listens to a lot more singers than he does to guitar players.