Career
Foreign the biggest percentage of Blind Guardian"s songs, particularly in more recent years, he has almost strictly played rhythm guitar, with most lead and solo work being performed by André Olbrich. He has since re-married. Growing up in a Roman Catholic family, Siepen claims to not be religious, and that he doesn"t believe in God.
He views Jesus Christ as a human philosopher, "a very charismatic person with a great view of how people should live together."
In September 2004 he broke his leg in four places while skateboarding.
Following the incident he made a pact with himself to never skate again, and sold his skateboard on Ebay. Since 1995, Siepen has been an endorser of Mesa/Boogie amplifiers, using various Triple Rectifier heads and multiple preamps.
As of 2010, his main rack consisted of a 3-channel Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier "Recto Reborn" head, with a Fractal Audio Axe-Forex II providing effects. He uses 2 Sennheiser wireless units, one as a backup, and his old 2-channel Rectifier as a backup.
When doing overseas shows, he solely uses an Axe-Forex World War II Previous versions of his rack featured the 2-channel Triple Rectifier as his main amplifier, a Rocktron Intelliflex instead of the Fractal for effects, and either a Mesa Boogie TriAxis preamp or Rectifier Recording Preamp instead of his 2-channel Triple Rectifier as a backup.
Foreign guitars, Siepen has made most use of Gibson and Education Support Professionals Guitars, with Gibson being his preferred brand nowadays. Up until the late "90s, Siepen mostly used Education Support Professionals guitars with Blind Guardian co-guitarist André Olbrich, both guitarists making use of custom-made Horizon and Mirage guitars, although Siepen has been seen using other shapes, such as a custom-built model based on the Jackson Randy Rhoads. He can sometimes be seen with a custom Education Support Professionals Eclipse, but he does not use this model often.
His current main guitars, since then, have been several Gibsons, mostly Les Paul models, his main two being a Les Paul Custom and a Les Paul Standard Premium Plus.
Most of his guitars, including the previously two mentioned models, feature dual Electromyography 81 pickups, Suhr Doug Aldrich pickups, and TonePros hardware.