Mark Kroos is one of those guitarists who makes playing the guitar look so much easier than it actually is, and the way he plays the double neck guitar is more than a little mind blowing. He can play a piece like Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” in a pianistic style, with one hand on one neck playing a funky bass accompaniment and the other playing a Kroos-esque arrangement of the familiar ragtime melody. His immense skill, coordination and joy bring to mind guitarists like Tommy Emmanuel, who are able to do the seemingly impossible while live on stage, and wearing a smile to boot. I had the pleasure of chatting with Mark ahead of his summer tour that brings him through Central Oregon for two free shows sponsored by the Deschutes Public Library. The first is at the Redmond Library on Friday, July 25 at 4pm, and the second show is at the Commons Cafe and Taproom on Saturday, July 26 at 6pm.
the Source: How old were you when you started playing guitar?
Mark Kroos: I started playing the guitar when I was twelve, but I picked it up a couple of times before that, because we had my great, great grandfather’s old classical guitar lying around the house and I wanted to play it. And it’s funny, this is something I run into with kids, or more, with parents who want their kid to learn an instrument… and the kid is like, well, the guitar is really cool. But what I usually find in those situations, and this is exactly what it was for me, is the kid doesn’t listen to music yet. If the kid isn’t passionate about music… or until a song hits you and you go, oh! I could play that? It’s three chords? Really? That was pretty big for me, when I was able to play the songs that I heard on the radio. That was incredibly empowering for me at that age.
tS: When did you take up the double neck guitar?
MK: I started writing a song [after college] where I couldn’t play both parts on one neck, so I set up another guitar lying flat on a keyboard stand. So, I had the guitar in the case and rested it on the keyboard stand and used my right hand to play that guitar, and I used my left hand to play another one I was holding. I found my original double neck guitar on eBay for five hundred dollars back in 2009. I didn’t have a whole lot of money at the time, you know, I was a guitar teacher right out of college. But I said, I’m going to get this guitar and try it. If it doesn’t work for what I want to use it for, I will sell it on eBay and get my money back. And the very first day it showed up, everything got so much easier. Especially after practicing on the two different guitars, coming to one guitar where it was all laid out in front of me… I could see everything at the same time. It didn’t even feel like I was playing on two different guitars. It felt like I was playing on one guitar.
tS: Which musicians most inspired you?
MK: I am a huge fan of Michael Hedges and he was a huge influence on my guitar playing, but it’s really George Winston [the pianist] that got me into instrumental music. That album, “December,” my mom played that all the time growing up. And I remember being about fifteen years old and thinking, I want to do an instrumental guitar arrangement of Canon in D [by Pachelbel]. It was many years later that I put that together on the double neck, and I play that at almost every concert.
tS: What do you hope people experience at your concerts?
MK: Oh, I think joy. I think inspiration. I think love. Connection. I’d like for us to have fun. You know, so much of life is very, very serious, right? Or it feels that way, anyway, so I think if we can all get together and just have a good time, it’s great. I like for people to feel seen. For me, so much of it is not on stage, but also off-stage when we get a chance to see people and have a human connection.
This article appears in Source Weekly July 24, 2025.
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