Steve Di Giorgio

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Steve Di Giorgio
2017 Testament - Steve Di Giorgio - by 2eight - DSC9249.jpg
Di Giorgio performing with Testament in 2017
Background information
Born (1967-11-07) November 7, 1967 (age 56)
Waukegan, Illinois, U.S.
Genres
Occupation(s)Musician
Instrument(s)Bass guitar
Years active1984–present
Member of
Formerly of
Website stevedigiorgio.com

Steve Di Giorgio (born November 7, 1967) is an American bass guitarist. He is known for his work with numerous heavy metal bands such as Sadus (of whom he was one of the co-founders), Death, Testament, Megadeth, Sebastian Bach, Iced Earth, Autopsy, Obituary, Control Denied, Dragonlord and Charred Walls of the Damned, and he has performed on over 50 albums as a guest, session or full-time band musician. [1]

Contents

Career

Di Giorgio has played bass guitar in heavy metal and death metal bands such as Death, [2] Autopsy, [3] Control Denied, [4] Ephel Duath, [5] Obscura, [6] Artension, Faust, Memorain, Painmuseum, Suicide Shift, Soen, [7] Vintersorg, [8] Dragonlord, [9] Iced Earth, [10] Sebastian Bach, [11] Obituary, [12] Megadeth, [13] and is a founding member of Sadus. [14] He is a founding member of the jazz band Dark Hall and has played bass in other bands such as Testament, [15] [16] Futures End, [17] Synesis Absorption, Mythodea, Charred Walls of the Damned, [18] Anatomy of I, [19] Gone in April, and Spirits of Fire. [20] Along with his bass duties in Sadus, he also plays keyboards. In October 2019, he founded the fusion-world-metal group Quadvium with fellow fretless bass player Jeroen Paul Thesseling. [21] [22] [23] A year later, he formed the death metal supergroup Act of Denial. [24] [25] [26]

Musical style and influences

Within his genre, Di Giorgio is respected for his highly technical playing skills. [27] [28] [29] [30] He is also credited with being the first bassist to bring fretless bass playing into the heavy/extreme metal genre, and often plays bass by using his fingers, although he has been seen using a pick on certain songs. Di Giorgio has stated that his main influences as a bassist are Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, Geezer Butler, Steve Harris, Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius, Billy Sheehan, Dave Pegg and Charles Meeks. [31] [32]

Personal life

Di Giorgio has been married for years, [33] and is the father of a daughter who was born in April 1994. [34] [35] [36] The family currently resides in Antioch, California. [37]

Equipment

Di Giorgio endorses Ibanez Guitars and primarily plays a number of different fretted and fretless BTB basses. He previously played two custom Mjolnir basses by Thor Bass; a custom made 5-string fretless model which he has converted to a 3-string and a custom-built 6 string fretless. He's also played custom ESP basses, mostly a F-series fretless 5-string bass in a dark green finish, but also uses a very unusual double-neck construction with a fretted and a fretless neck in one body. He currently uses an EBS Fafner head as his main sound, but has also used Ampeg and Randall in the past. [38]

Di Giorgio's bass guitars

Discography

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autopsy (band)</span> American death metal band

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Testament (band)</span> American thrash metal band

Testament is an American thrash metal band from Berkeley, California. Formed in 1983 under the name Legacy, the band's current lineup comprises rhythm guitarist Eric Peterson, lead vocalist Chuck Billy, lead guitarist Alex Skolnick, bassist Steve Di Giorgio and drummer Chris Dovas. Testament has experienced many lineup changes over the years, with Peterson being the only remaining original member, though they have since reunited with Skolnick, who had been out of the band from 1992 to 2005. Billy has been a member of Testament since 1986, when he replaced original singer Steve "Zetro" Souza, who had left to replace Paul Baloff in Exodus. Peterson and Billy are the only members to appear on all of Testament's studio albums. The band has released thirteen studio albums, four live albums, five compilation albums, thirteen singles and three DVDs. They are estimated to have sold over 1.4 million albums in the United States since the beginning of the SoundScan era, and over 14 million copies worldwide as of 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sadus</span> American thrash metal band

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<i>Out for Blood</i> (Sadus album) 2006 studio album by Sadus

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeroen Paul Thesseling</span> Musical artist

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Charred Walls of the Damned is an American heavy metal supergroup formed in 2009 consisting of drummer Richard Christy, bassist Steve Di Giorgio, vocalist Tim "Ripper" Owens and guitarist Jason Suecof. The band was formed by Christy after a five-year absence from the metal scene since joining The Howard Stern Show in 2004. They have released three studio albums.

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<i>Brotherhood of the Snake</i> 2016 studio album by Testament

Brotherhood of the Snake is the twelfth studio album by American thrash metal band Testament, released on October 28, 2016. It is the band's first studio recording with bassist Steve Di Giorgio since First Strike Still Deadly (2001). Brotherhood of the Snake also marks Testament's fifth collaboration with Andy Sneap, who had mixed and engineered all of their albums since The Gathering (1999) and produced Dark Roots of Earth (2012). The album debuted at number twenty on the Billboard 200 chart, making it Testament's second-highest-charting album in the US, behind Dark Roots of Earth, which peaked at number twelve four years earlier.

Spirits of Fire is an American/Italian supergroup consisting of Savatage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra guitarist Chris Caffery, Testament bassist Steve Di Giorgio, and former Fates Warning drummer Mark Zonder. Tim "Ripper" Owens formerly of Judas Priest and Iced Earth was a founding member of the band before leaving in 2021. The identity of Owens' replacement was kept secret while the band was recording their second album. The new singer Fabio Lione was announced 8th december 2021 with their second album Embrace The Unknown that will released on 28 February 2022 via Frontiers Records.

References

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Preceded by Megadeth bassist
2021
Succeeded by