Why I love my… Fender Troy Van Leeuwen Jazzmaster, with LÜT frontman and guitarist Matt Ystmark

LÜT
(Image credit: Future)

Imagine the situation; you're the guitarist in a five-piece Norwegian punk rock band with two acclaimed albums under your belt and praise from Lars Ulrich on his It's Electric podcast. You're going places; you're offered a support slot by German icons Die Ärzte to play to thousands of people then… your singer quits. 

If you're Mads Erlend Ystmark (aka Matt) you step up, take on the role as frontman and ace it. When we watched LÜT's show in Alta, Northern Norway a few months later we were convinced he'd been born a frontman. He's got that essence of a rockstar that can't be taught or learned; he just is one. Alongside fellow guitarist Ørjan Nyborg Myrland, bassist Marius James Platt and drummer Sveinung Mellem Engvik, the future for LÜT looks very bright indeed.

LÜT

(Image credit: LÜT)

The Trondheim band sing in their native Norwegian and it didn't matter to us that we couldn't understand the words; we got the message loud and clear. The energy and passion of this band live is contagious and we quickly became believers. We can't wait to hear what the band's new material with Matt singing will sound like on their next release with Norway's Indie Recordings.  

Matt's certainly got great taste in guitar gear, and we have a pedalboard tour with him and Ørjan coming up. But first, we wanted to show you his Jazzmaster…

Rob Laing
Guitars Editor, MusicRadar

I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.