Yngwie Johan Malmsteen ; born 30 June 1963) is a Swedish guitarist. He first became known in the 1980s for his neoclassical playing style in heavy metal, and has released 22 studio albums in a career spanning over 40 years. In August 2009, Time magazine named Malmsteen No. 9 on its list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all time.
Joseph Satriani is an American rock guitarist, composer, and songwriter. Early in his career he worked as a guitar instructor, with many of his former students achieving fame, including Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, and Alex Skolnick. Satriani went on to have a successful solo music career, starting in the mid-1980s. He is a 15-time Grammy Award nominee and has sold over ten million albums, making him the bestselling instrumental rock guitarist of all time.
Instrumental rock is rock music that emphasizes instrumental performance and features very little or no singing. Examples of instrumental music in rock can be found in practically every subgenre of the style. Instrumental rock was most popular from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s, with artists such as Bill Doggett Combo, The Fireballs, The Shadows, The Ventures, Johnny and the Hurricanes and The Spotnicks. Surf music had many instrumental songs. Many instrumental hits had roots from the R&B genre. The Allman Brothers Band feature several instrumentals. Jeff Beck also recorded two instrumental albums in the 1970s. Progressive rock and art rock performers of the late 1960s and early 1970s did many virtuosic instrumental performances.
Neoclassical metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is heavily influenced by classical music and usually features very technical playing, consisting of elements borrowed from both classical and speed metal music. Yngwie Malmsteen became one of the most notable musicians in the subgenre, and contributed greatly to the development of the style in the 1980s. Other notable players in the genre are Randy Rhoads, Luca Turilli, Michael Romeo, Jason Becker, Tony MacAlpine, Vinnie Moore, Alexi Laiho, Jani Liimatainen, Kiko Loureiro, Uli Jon Roth, Stéphan Forté, Wolf Hoffmann, Timo Tolkki, Syu and Marty Friedman.
John Peter Petrucci is an American guitarist, best known as a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. He produced or co-produced all of Dream Theater's albums from Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (1999) to A View from the Top of the World (2021), and has been the sole producer of the band's albums released since A Dramatic Turn of Events (2011). Petrucci has also released two solo albums: Suspended Animation (2005) and Terminal Velocity (2020).
Michael “Mike” Varney is an American record producer and music publisher. He is the founder of the Shrapnel Label Group, which includes Shrapnel Records, Tone Center Records, and Blues Bureau International. He also owns 50% of Magna Carta Records, a New York–based label. Varney is often credited with popularizing the mid-1980s shred guitar boom, and has continuously specialized in producing musicians within the genres of instrumental rock, hard rock, jazz, jazz fusion, blues, blues-rock, progressive metal, and speed metal.
Adrian Legg is an English guitar player who has been called "impossible to categorize". He plays custom guitars that are a hybrid of electric and acoustic, and his fingerstyle picking technique has been acknowledged by the readers of Guitar Player who voted Legg the "best acoustic fingerstyle" player four years in a row (1993–1996).
Derek Sherinian is an American keyboardist of Armenian descent who has toured and recorded for Alice Cooper, Billy Idol, and Joe Bonamassa, among others. He was also a member of Dream Theater from 1994 to 1999, is the founder of Planet X and also one of the founding members of Black Country Communion, Sons of Apollo, and Whom Gods Destroy. He has released nine solo albums that have featured a variety of prominent guest musicians, including guitarists Slash, Yngwie Malmsteen, Allan Holdsworth, Steve Lukather, Joe Bonamassa, Michael Schenker, Steve Vai and Al Di Meola, and extensively drummer Simon Phillips.
Steve J. Morse is an American guitarist, best known as the founder of the Dixie Dregs and as the longest serving guitarist for Deep Purple from 1994 to 2022. Morse has also enjoyed a successful solo career and was a member of the group Kansas in the mid-1980s. Most recently, Morse became a member of the supergroup Flying Colors.
Shred guitar is a virtuosic style of electric guitar performance. Categorized by its use of advanced techniques, shredding is a complex art form. Shred guitar includes fast alternate picking, sweep-picking, diminished and harmonic minor scales, tapping, and whammy bar use. Often incorporated in heavy metal, guitarists employ a guitar amplifier and a range of effects such as distortion. This creates a sustained guitar tone and may facilitate guitar feedback.
Uli Jon Roth is a German guitarist who became famous for his work with the hard rock band Scorpions and is one of the earliest contributors to the neoclassical metal genre. He is also the founder of Sky Academy and designer of the Sky Guitar. He is the older brother of fellow guitarist and artist Zeno Roth (1956–2018).
Patrick Rondat is a French guitarist. He plays instrumental heavy metal associated with diverse influences such as new-age music, progressive metal, classical music and jazz. He has collaborated on various projects with Jean Michel Jarre and has taken part in some of his shows.
G3: Live in Tokyo is a live album and DVD recorded at the Tokyo International Forum during the 2005 G3 tour, featuring Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and John Petrucci.
G3: Rockin' in the Free World is a double live album by the G3 project that was recorded at The Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, on October 21, 2003. The album featured the touring lineup of the project leader Joe Satriani, frequent member Steve Vai and guest guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen. A DVD of the same tour, but with a different track list, was released as G3: Live in Denver.
Dave LaRue is an American bassist who performed with the Dixie Dregs from 1988 to 2017 and with guitarist Steve Morse's Band since 1989. He also has worked with Dream Theater's John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, Derek Sherinian and Jordan Rudess. He plays Music Man bass guitars, among them the "Sterling" and "StingRay 5 five-string" but has mainly switched to their "Bongo" line including four- and five-string fretted and fretless models. From March 2006 to September 2006, he toured with Joe Satriani on the Super Colossal tour. Most recently, LaRue became a member of the supergroup Flying Colors alongside long-time bandmate Steve Morse.
G3: Live in Denver is a live DVD of the 2003 G3 tour, featuring performances by G3 founder Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Yngwie Malmsteen. Along with this DVD, a double-CD album was released, G3: Rockin' in the Free World. The DVD was recorded at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver, on October 20, 2003. Despite the name on the DVD case, when played the title that appears on screen is "G3: Live from Denver" rather than "G3: Live in Denver".
Bryan Beller is an American bass guitarist known for his work with Joe Satriani, The Aristocrats, Dethklok, Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, James LaBrie of Dream Theater and Dweezil Zappa, as well as his four solo album releases, View (2003), Thanks In Advance (2008), Wednesday Night Live (2011), and the progressive double concept album Scenes From The Flood (2019). He has been Joe Satriani's touring bassist since 2013, encompassing the Unstoppable Momentum tour (2013–14), the Shockwave (2015–16) world tour, and the G3/What Happens Next tour (2018), in addition to featuring on the Shockwave Supernova record. Beller is also the bassist of the rock/fusion super-trio The Aristocrats, and he managed the band from 2012 to 2018. The Aristocrats have released six studio albums, along with four live releases documenting the band's world tours in support of their debut album The Aristocrats and sophomore album Culture Clash. Their studio album You Know What... was the focus of their world tour that began in the summer of 2019 and extended through to 2020.
Bjorn Englen is the bass player for Soul Sign and Dio Disciples. Bjorn has also played bass for Yngwie Malmsteen, Quiet Riot, MSG/Survivor vocalist Robin McAuley, Scorpions guitarist Uli Jon Roth and Tony MacAlpine.
Steve Vai is an American guitarist, songwriter and producer. He started his career in 1980 playing with Frank Zappa and has since recorded and toured with Alcatrazz, Whitesnake, David Lee Roth, and Public Image Ltd. Since 1983 Vai also released his own studio albums. His discography consists of eight studio albums, two EPs, two special albums, eight live albums, twelve soundtracks, twenty compilation albums and seven videos. Vai has been awarded three Grammy Awards and forty other awards. Vai has also appeared as a guest musician on forty-four albums, as diverse as Motörhead, M83, and most recently for the second time with Jacob Collier.
Triumphant Hearts is an album by American musician Jason Becker. Though paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Becker is able to compose new material with a computer-assisted system. In October 2016, Becker launched a campaign to fund the album, which was initially estimated for release in July 2017. The campaign raised more than $100,000. The album was released on December 7, 2018.
