About Us
The Strats are a Blues Rock Band, featuring Will Ludford on guitar. He is based in Monaghan, Ireland.
Will Ludford
Will has been playing guitar for some time, starting in his first band in Leighton Buzzard 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. For a while Will worked at the music shop which was in Bridge street in Leighton Buzzard, this was owned by Richard Watts , of Sims Watts amplification fame! here he often jammed with friends Art Noveau … who became Kajagoogoo, He then joined other 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. here he met and worked with the truly talented Alton Ellis and Sly and Robbie , very professional people and musicians… 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.
In his career Will has worked with numerous well known bands and musicians such as Tiny Tim, Alton Ellis, George Harrison, The Barron Knights and was privilaged to have jammed with Jimi Hendrix. While on tour in Germany Will had a break down and was taken back to the UK where he spent five years in a London drug clinic, when he left the clinic he entered a monastery for three years and joined a cult who follow the path of the Holy Grail. 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. The Strats band members all still live in Leighton Buzzard and Will joins them for tours and shows. The new CD from the Strats “Falling Off The Edge Of The World” reached no. 5 in the American aiir radio charts and was voted 14th best CD of 2009, Will has now built his own 24 track studio at the castle and looks forward to recording a new CD, ..now mostly a recluse, Wills music and guitar playing is being discovered by a new generation of musicians.
