Tommy Victor | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Thomas Michael Victor |
Born | 1961or1962(age 61–62) New York City, U.S. |
Genres | Groove metal, thrash metal, industrial metal, alternative metal, crossover thrash |
Occupation(s) | Musician, singer, songwriter, record producer |
Instrument(s) | Guitar, vocals |
Years active | 1984–present |
Member of | Prong, Danzig |
Formerly of | Ministry, Tapeworm |
Thomas Michael Victor [1] (born 1961/1962 [2] ) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and producer. He is best known as the lead singer and guitarist for heavy metal band Prong, which he founded in New York City in 1986, as well as the guitarist for heavy metal band Danzig intermittently since 1996 and full-time since 2008.
In the late 1980s, Victor worked as a sound engineer at the music club CBGB in New York City. After the release of Rude Awakening in 1996, Prong disbanded and Victor moved to Los Angeles, but later revived the band to release new Prong records. He took a break from Prong during which he worked alongside rock musicians including Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Trent Reznor, and Glenn Danzig.
Since 2012's Carved into Stone , Prong have been very active again, releasing albums and touring regularly. 2013 saw the band release their Official Bootleg – Unleashed in the West album which featured re-recordings of 17 classic Prong tracks. The next studio album, Ruining Lives was released in 2014, and 2015 saw the band release their first covers album entitled Songs from the Black Hole .
Victor is also part of the hard rock, heavy metal, hardcore punk and punk rock supergroup Teenage Time Killers.
Victor has toured and recorded with Ministry and Danzig. He has also provided guest vocals for the Soulfly album Omen . He contributed to the Argyle Park album Misguided , and wrote the main riff for the song "Doomsayer", which he later used on the Prong song "Controller". [3] [4]
This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(October 2020) |
Victor has been endorsed by Schecter Guitar Research ever since reuniting with Prong, using both an S-1 and C-1 in early live performances. He would later on start using their Devil guitar, which would be the basis for his second signature model. In 2013, his first signature model would be released, based on the newly introduced Banshee series, but with a mahogany body and neck, ebony fretboard, EMG pickups, and custom inlays. In 2015, his second signature model was introduced, based on the Devil series guitar and with similar specifications to his first signature model, but with black nickel hardware, and a single 12th-fret Prong inlay.
Before using Schecter, Victor relied on several guitars, most famously a Charvel Surfcaster. Other guitars he used around that era were a Charvel LSX, Charvel Predator, and Gibson SG Custom. Around the release of Rude Awakening, and before Prong's breakup, he was endorsed by Fernandes Guitars, using both a Vertigo and Deuce WS model.
Prong is an American heavy metal band formed in New York City in 1986. The band is fronted by guitarist/vocalist Tommy Victor, Prong's sole constant member. To date, they have released 13 studio albums, one live album, four EPs, one DVD and one remix album.
Rude Awakening is the fifth studio album by American metal band Prong. It is an enhanced CD but was also released as a special limited edition on 12" red vinyl. The album was reissued in 2008 as a digipak version, featuring four remixes of the "Rude Awakening" single and a new booklet.
Jake E. Lee is an American musician best known as lead guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne between 1982 and 1987 and later as a member of the heavy metal band Badlands with Ray Gillen. He formed the band Red Dragon Cartel in 2013, and their debut album released in January 2014 entered the Billboard Album Chart at number 69. He has also recorded solo works under his own name—examples being the instrumental album A Fine Pink Mist (1996) and cover album Retraced (2005).
George Lynch is an American guitarist, best known for his work with the hard rock band Dokken and his post-Dokken solo band Lynch Mob. He is considered one of the most famous and influential 1980s metal guitarists and is known for his unique playing style and sound. He is ranked No. 47 on "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" by Guitar World magazine and No. 10 on "Top 10 Metal Guitarists of All Time" by Gibson.
Scott Ian is an American musician, best known as the rhythm guitarist, lyricist and co-founder of the thrash metal band Anthrax, of which he is the sole continuous member. Ian is also the guitarist, lyricist, and a founding member of the crossover thrash band Stormtroopers of Death, and is the rhythm guitarist for the metal bands the Damned Things and Mr. Bungle. He has hosted The Rock Show on VH1 and has appeared on VH1's I Love the... series, Heavy: The Story of Metal, and SuperGroup.
Frank Bello is an American musician who plays bass for the thrash metal band Anthrax. Bello had also performed as a touring member of the band Helmet from 2004 to 2005.
Superstrat is a name for an electric guitar design that resembles a Fender Stratocaster but with differences that clearly distinguish it from a standard Stratocaster, usually to cater to a different playing style. Differences typically include more pointed, aggressive-looking body and neck shapes with increased cutaways to facilitate access to the higher frets, an increased number of frets on the fingerboard, a contoured heel at the neck joint facilitating easier higher fret access, the usage of humbucking pickups, and locking vibrato systems, most commonly the Floyd Rose.
Kenneth Shaun Hickey is an American musician. He was the co-founder, guitarist, and backing and occasional co-lead vocalist of the gothic metal band Type O Negative, whom he played for from 1989 until the death of the band's frontman and bassist Peter Steele in 2010. He is currently the lead vocalist and guitarist for Silvertomb and was the co-founder of Seventh Void. All three bands featured fellow Type O Negative member Johnny Kelly on drums. Hickey is also an occasional touring guitarist for Danzig.
Jeff Loomis is an American musician, best known for his role as lead guitarist in the progressive metal band Nevermore during its existence from 1991 to 2011, as well as brief tenures in its precursor, Sanctuary. In 2014, he joined Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy, and in 2021 he joined Graham Bonnet's Alcatrazz as well. As a solo artist he has released two albums and one EP.
Charvel is a brand of electric guitars founded in the 1970s by Wayne Charvel in Azusa, California and originally headquartered in Glendora, California. Since 2002, Charvel has been under the ownership of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.
Brian Elwin Haner Jr., better known by his stage name Synyster Gates or simply Syn, is an American guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist of heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold. He ranks No. 9 on Guitar World's best metal guitarists of all time. Gates was voted as Best Metal Guitarist in the World by Total Guitar in 2016 and once again in 2017.
James Donald Root is an American guitarist. He is one of two guitarists for heavy metal band Slipknot, in which he is designated #4, as well as the former lead guitarist for rock band Stone Sour.
Balsac the Jaws of Death is the stage name of Mike Derks; the rhythm guitarist in the American heavy metal band Gwar since 1988. On stage he appears as a humanoid creature with a face resembling a bear-trap, usually portrayed wielding an enormous battleaxe.
Paul Caiafa, known professionally as Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein, is an American guitarist best known for his material with the horror punk band the Misfits and his own band eponymously named Doyle.
Daniel Joseph Donegan is an American musician who is the guitarist, keyboardist and one of the founding members of heavy metal band Disturbed.
Chris Impellitteri is an American guitarist and songwriter, who is the lead guitarist and founder of the heavy metal band Impellitteri.
Misguided is Argyle Park's only album under that name. The album was released on March 21, 1995, by R.E.X. Records into the Christian rock market, and sits alongside other early 90s work by Circle of Dust and Mortal as being instrumental in introducing industrial music to the Christian music scene. The album was nominated for Best Metal/Hard Rock Album at the 27th Annual GMA Dove Awards in 1996.
Björn Gelotte is a Swedish musician and songwriter, best known as the lead guitarist for heavy metal band In Flames. He originally joined the band as the drummer in 1995, and continued in this position during The Jester Race (1996) and Whoracle (1997). He switched to his current position on lead guitar after Glenn Ljungström left the band and played solely guitars since Colony (1999), sharing lead/rhythm guitar work with former In Flames guitarist Jesper Strömblad.
Russell John Parrish, better known as Satchel, is an American musician. He is the lead guitarist for the comedic glam metal band Steel Panther.