Akira Takasaki

Takasaki found enough time to start Killer Guitars, a company co-founded and managed with fellow guitarist George Azuma.

[5] Takasaki's guitar playing style is characterized by complicated heavy metal riffs executed at great speed and with extreme precision, often using alternate picking technique and little vibrato.

[4] His shred guitar work has attracted many fans over the world and his musicianship has often been compared to the ability of guitarists of his age like Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Kirk Hammett, David T. Chastain and others.

[6] In 1986 Takasaki declared that the main influences for his compositions and guitar solos came from the work of Deep Purple's guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and from Japanese music for koto.

[5] Its name was coined by rearranging the three hiragana characters that are found in both Takasaki's given name and the surname of his guitar technician Ichizo Araki into "kiraa" (きらあ), which sounds similar to the English word "killer".

Former Loudness manager, Kazuo Sumida said on an interview to Premier Guitar on February 11, 2010: "On the On the Prowl album he had mainly used Lee Jackson's modded Marshall.

I also think his Lee Jackson modified Marshalls were the main gear for the Soldier of Fortune album and tour, but I also remember Akira using the GP-1000 in his house, with a Macintosh Power Amp and JBL speakers.

Takasaki playing a Killer guitar, 2022