Carl ("Fritz") Hart is our very talented lead guitarist. He also fills in on bass when Irv is busy with keyboards.

Carl is a fanatic about tone, and all of his guitars and amps reflect this passion. His main instrument is a classic Gibson "SG Special" (which was manufactured in the same year he was born: 1964!) Loaded with Gibson P-90 pickups, this guitar really screams. It is the same model used by Carlos Santana and Pete Townshend at Woodstock. This sound can be heard on The Who's "Live at Leeds" album... (or live at any Fender Benders show!) Carl also plays a 1975 Electra Omega guitar, endorsers of which include Peter Frampton. Carl's most recent addition is a great-sounding Xaviere Lemon Drop XV-500 "Tony Zematis style" guitar. Carl's main amp is a Russian-made Sovtec "Mig 60" (manufactured in the same factory that made radios for Soviet T-series tanks), fed into a yellow pine cabinet loaded with four 12" Eminence alnico speakers (Jensen "P10R" clones).

Carl also has a love of all things Danelectro and Silvertone (this line of guitars and amplifiers were produced by Danelectro and sold through Sears Roebuck back in the 1960's). He has a sweet-sounding, 12-string Danelectro "Hodad 12" guitar, which he plays into a cherry-condition 1965 Sears Silvertone "Twin 12" amp. Between the three 6-string guitars and the 12-string guitar, Carl has 30 strings to keep in tune during a gig (which proves interesting when we play outdoors).

Carl is a tube amp aficionado/connoisseur/genius. One reason The Fender Benders sometimes sound even better than the original records is because all of the tube amps in the band have been modified and tuned for optiomum tone by Carl (who is belovedly known by band members as "The Mad Tweaker"... among other names we won't mention here!)

As the youngest member of the band, Carl grew up in a different musical era than the rest of The Fender Benders. He was raised in a house dominated by the sounds of classical violin music. His mother toured southern German churches playing in a classical trio. It was Carl's older sister who introduced him to Rock and Roll. In the pre format days of radio, the local station J94 played everything from The Carpenters to Led Zeppelin. It was on this station that Carl heard the song that changed his life: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen was released at the end of 1976, when Carl was 12 years old. When he heard this song on J94, he was "completely destroyed." He walked around for a couple of weeks with the song playing constantly through his mind. After the J94 DJ's refused to take any more requests from this pesky kid, Carl finally went to Atomic Sounds record shop in the local mall and purchased his first Rock album, Queen's classic, "A Night at the Opera." Brian May's guitar work echoed all of the classical violin he had grown up with. Carl knew he just had to have an electric guitar!

For Christmas a year later, he got one and spent more time polishing it than playing it! About a year later, he sold it to his friend Jimmy Eliason and watched as Jimmy really began playing the thing. "Big mistake!" thought Carl, so he borrowed an acoustic guitar and began learning. About this time, Carl saw a documentary on PBS called "South Bound" with Happy MacGee that featured the blues and, for a second time, Carl was "completley destroyed." For the next few years, he played acoustic blues: Lightnin' Hopkins, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson.  When he discovered Led Zeppelin, it all made sense; he understood just where they got all that stuff from. Still, Carl didn't get his next electric guitar until his second year in college.

More amazing music was coming through his big sister's door. The sound of English punk and new wave; bands like the Sex Pistols, The Clash, U2, Madness, The Psychedelic Furs, The Jam. All of them rocked hard (and the songs where a lot easier learn and play than Bohemian Rhapsody!) At this time, he also discovered an underground music revolution that years later would be called "Alernative." As formated radio seemed to strangle artistic creativity, a vast network of independant record labels sprand up. These "Indies" where responsible for promoting some of the best Rock ever made: The Replacements, Husker Du, R.E.M., Scruffy the Cat, The Beat Farmers, The Church, Soul Asylum. Says Carl, "Most musicians in the know at this time knew these bands inside and out." (Steve and Irv obviously weren't "in the know," since they've never heard of any of them - sometimes, they think Carl speaks a foreign language!)

Carl Played in the Sigma Nu house band Nervous Fashion, and later formed The Missionaries. Later still, The Leather Bound Shakespeares. In all of these post-punk bands, Carl still played the Blues -- and he still does. (Read about how Carl's love for the blues affected another talented musician, Jeff Harrison, in a life-changing way by linking here: Blues Got A Hold On Me.)

Carl moved to Salt Lake and was musically inactive for several years before he joined the Alternative band Iris. He then moved back to Logan and after several more years of musical inactivity, Carl began doing all of the amplifier repairs for KSM Music. Rod Evans, drummer and then-manager of KSM, heard Carl jamming in the store and Carl, along with Rod's wife Chrissy, beacame the house guitarist for Rod's studio. Carl played on many radio jingles and "vanity projects" until, after a couple of years, Rod and Chrissy moved to Nashville to pursue "the dream."

For his day job, Carl works as a real estate agent. By night, he used to drive his family crazy playing regularly and loudly in his basement and, after their failed attempt to get him into golf, they were thrilled when Carl was discovered by The Fender Benders. Steve Roberts was in KSM Music one day and heard Carl testing a boutique amplifier. Steve said "Wow! We need that guy in our band!" And although the rest may not be history, it sounds pretty good!