Ahrue Luster

Who is Ahrue Luster?

Ahrue Luster, born September 17, 1968 in Chicago, is the current lead guitarist for the Latin metal band Ill Niño. He is also the former guitarist for Machine Head as well as Manmade God and a Bay Area Thrash Metal act called The Horde of Torment who were originally called "Pestilence" but had to change their name because another Pestilence had signed to Roadrunner Records.

Ahrue Luster is the current lead guitarist for the Latin Metal band Ill Niño. He is also the former guitarist for the critically acclaimed Metal act, Machine Head. He joined Ill Niño during the recording of their second album, Confession. Although he wasn't the original lead guitarist of Ill Niño, Ahrue has become one of the main songwriters and musical contributors. Ahrue grew up listening to Rock and Metal but as he became more and more of a musician he became familiar with many other styles of music. Ill Niño is a great fit for Ahrue musically because of his love of not only aggressive, heavy music, but many other styles of music including the cultural music of South America and Spain. Over the past 14 years, Ahrue has played over 2000 concerts all over the U.S, Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Japan, South and Central America, and Australia. He has shared the stage with many legendary bands including Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slipknot, Slayer, Disturbed, Godsmack, Korn, Judas Priest, The Cure, Willie Nelson, Sammy Hagar, and countless others. Each of the 6 studio albums on which Ahrue has played have broken Billboard’s Top 100 or 200, and combined, have sold close to 2 million units worldwide. Eight singles from these records have placed in the U.S. Active Rock Charts, have seen regular rotation, and some are still in rotation. Other songs from these records have appeared in television shows, and box office films including the Ill Niño track “How Can I Live”, which became the title track to the 2003 “Freddie vs. Jason ” Movie, which has grossed over $113,000,000 worldwide. Over the course of his career, Ahrue has worked with some very talented multi-Platinum producers and sound engineers, including Ross Robinson, Terry Date, Collin Richardson, Johnny K, and Andy Johns, whose album credits go all the way back to the days of Led Zeppelin. Ahrue has always been very interested in all aspects of the recording process, and working with the likes of these great producers and engineers was an incredible learning experience for him. In 2008, Ahrue decided to use all the experience and knowledge gained over the course of his career to start his own music production company and recording studio, Illustrious Productions. Although most of Ahrue’s clients are local musicians from the Denver area, Illustrious has been gaining popularity and notoriety on a larger scale as well. Ahrue takes a great deal of pride in every single project that comes through his door, whether it’s a band or artist that he thinks has potential to do something great, or a young band who has never recorded before. He feels that music is what saved his life when he was a troubled teen and relishes the opportunity to give back by passing his knowledge along to aspiring young musicians. In his opinion, this is why Illustrious Productions remains successful and continues to grow.