Alex Skolnick

Alex Skolnick
Background information
Born	(1968-09-29) September 29, 1968
Genres	Heavy metal, thrash metal, jazz, jazz fusion
Occupation	Musician
Instrument	Guitar
Years active	1983–present
Labels	Roadrunner, Nuclear Blast
Website	www.alexskolnick.com

Alexander Nathan Skolnick (born September 29, 1968,) is an American jazz and metal guitarist who heads the jazz band Alex Skolnick Trio and is the lead guitarist of the Bay Area thrash metal band Testament. He is considered as one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Biography

Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Alex began playing the guitar at age nine. He was influenced by Eddie Van Halen, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Johnny Winter, Randy Rhoads Yngwie Malmsteen and The Scorpions. He was a student of renowned guitarist Joe Satriani and was one of many guitarists (Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan) who studied under Satriani to achieve fame. His parents, Jerome Skolnick and Arlene, are professors of sociology at New York University and have previously taught at UC Berkeley. Skolnick has an older brother, Michael.

Alex was a member of the San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal band Testament from 1983 until his departure in 1993. He returned briefly to re-record some old material for the band's First Strike Still Deadly release, as well as the "Thrash of the Titans" all-star performance in 2001, before returning full-time four years later.

After his first departure from Testament, Alex joined the band Savatage in 1994 for the recording of Handful of Rain, as well as its follow-up live album and home video release Japan Live '94. He has also recorded and briefly toured with the Stu Hamm band, and played with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He also played guitar for Ozzy Osbourne in 1995. In 2004, Skolnick made a guest appearance on Lamb of God's Ashes of the Wake album, recording a solo for the album's instrumental title track.

During the mid to late 1990s, Skolnick fronted several projects in the Bay Area, including Skol-Patrol (a funk band exclusively dedicated to cop-show themes, both covered and original, featuring Michael Manring). He also recorded two albums with Attention Deficit, a 3-piece featuring Tim Alexander from Primus as well as Manring.

In 1998, Skolnick relocated to New York City and began devoting all of his energy to jazz, enrolling in the jazz program at The New School. Since 2002, he has been touring and recording with the Alex Skolnick Trio, a jazz group known for playing rousing bebop renditions of classic rock and heavy metal tunes. The Trio has performed at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, MusikMesse in Frankfurt, Germany, at the National Center for the Arts, Mexico City, at the Iridium Jazz Club, New York City, and numerous other venues all over the world. AST bends the conviction of rock with the elegance and sophistication of jazz. Since their debut, AST has had an entire Jazz notes column in honored with 4 ½ stars by Downbeat, reviewed by Jazziz, The Village Voice and has charted on the JazzWeek radio charts. Fans of the group include international superstars Rodrigo y Gabriella, who chose the trio as their support act on tours throughout the US and Europe in 2010 and recruited Alex as a guest on their hit album 11/11, and Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, who joined the band for an impromptu jam at Radio City Music Hall. The trio’s latest record, Veritas, reached the Top Ten of the iTunes jazz charts, nestled in between Miles Davis and Esperanza Spalding, and is released via the highly respected jazz label, Palmetto Records. In October 2007, the Alex Skolnick Trio were support act to Rodrigo y Gabriela on the US East Coast. In 2009, Skolnick featured a guitar solo on 'Atman' for Rodrigo y Gabriela' studio album 11:11. The Skolnick Trio were also the main support band on Rodrigo Y Gabriela's consecutive European and US tour in late 2010, including five nights in London, all of which sold out. Alex released a 3 DVD Jazz tuition set with Rock House Method in May 2010.

Alex has also been active in blending music with works of Art and Literature. In 2007, he contributed a solo for Egyptian Artist Nader Sadek's project, "Faceless," which was composed by Steve Tucker (formerly of Morbid Angel) The song was only to be heard in an art gallery in New York. In 2012, he performed live at the Feature Inc Gallery in New York, for the works of visual artist Doug Melini. He is currently working on a musical spoken-word project "The Bestiary" with author Bradford Morrow. He also has an upcoming World Music-Art-Architecture project Planetary Coalition which was kick-started at Union Square, at the annual Make Music New York Festival, sponsored by Guitar World Magazine

In the spring of 2005, Alex Skolnick and the rest of the classic Testament lineup reunited for a short European tour (10 Days of May Tour), with some American dates appended on. The tour was successful and a CD/DVD release was put together from the May 8, 2005 London show. On April 29, 2008, Testament released their first studio album in nine years, Formation of Damnation. Alex and Testament finished work on a new studio album, entitled Dark Roots of Earth, released on July 27th, 2012. The album debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard Top 200 and at No.1 on Billboard Hard Rock and Rock albums.

Skolnick has composed music for the USA Network's broadcast of the 2002 Westminster Dog Show (a big band jazz piece), and the MTV series "Makin' The Band." Skolnick played one of the solos of the song, "Ashes of the wake," of Lamb of God with Chris Poland, formerly of Megadeth. For the 2012 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic Hockey on NBC Networks Skolnick performed the music for NBC's television commercial. Skolnick has appeared as the guest guitarist on That Metal Show hosted by Eddie Trunk in episodes featuring Lars Ulrich and Sammy Hagar. Until 2009, Skolnick also toured with the East Coast set of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra in the winter months. In 2010, Alex Skolnick became a producer for the Iraqi Thrash Metal Band Acrassicauda which was the subject of the critically acclaimed documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

Raised in the Bay Area, he now considers Brooklyn, New York his home. The silver streak in his hair is natural, which appeared on his head at age fourteen. He is also a writer, penning a popular blog, "SkolNotes" (featured on Alltop.com) and is a frequent contributor to Guitar Player Magazine on-line. His first book "Geek to Guitar Hero", a memoir, which he wrote between 2009 to 2011, will be released in November 2012. He made the announcement of the book on Sirius XM Radio during the New York Comic Con in October 2012.

Equipment

Skolnick now plays Heritage Guitar electric and Godin hollow-bodied models with Seymour Duncan pickups. In 2009 Heritage released Alex's first signature guitar. The Alex Skolnick model is a solid body based upon the H 150/157 model. In his early years with Testament he endorsed Ibanez guitars and mainly played the 540SLTD model. For amplification, he uses discontinued Marshall ModeFour hybrid amps.

Discography

Year	Artist	Album	Notes
1987	Testament	The Legacy
1988	Testament	The New Order
1989	Testament	Practice What You Preach
1990	Testament	Souls of Black
1992	Testament	The Ritual
1994	Savatage	Handful of Rain
1995	Savatage	Japan Live '94
1997	The Skol-Patrol	Skol-Patrol
1998	Attention Deficit	Attention Deficit
2001	Attention Deficit	The Idiot King
2002	Alex Skolnick Trio	Goodbye to Romance: Standards for a New Generation
	Stratospheerius	Adventures of Stratospheerius
2004	Alex Skolnick Trio	Transformation
	Lamb of God	Ashes of the Wake	Second solo on "Ashes of the Wake"
	Stratospheerius	Live Wires	Guitar on "Contusion" and "Shock Therapy"
2005	Ofri Eliaz	Ya salio de la mar - Ladino Songs	co-production, guitars
	Numbers from the Beast	An All Star Salute to Iron Maiden	Lead Guitar on "Wrathchild"
2007	Alex Skolnick Trio	Last Day in Paradise
2008	Testament	The Formation of Damnation
2011	Alex Skolnick Trio	Veritas
2012	Testament	Dark Roots of Earth

External links

• Official webpage
• Testament's official webpage
• Savatage's official webpage