About

I started to mess around with the guitar when I was a little kid. My Dad had introduced me to the classic surf rock band, The Ventures & the legendary Santana. He then taught me some of the Ventures' tunes such as, "Walk Don't Run", "Surf Rider", "Wipe Out" etc. Along with that, he taught me Santana songs, Cream songs & other classic rock hits. I soon lost interest in guitar after taking lessons from a teacher(due to playing "Twinkle,Twinkle, Little Star" way to many times)& decided to put the guitar down(I quit).

When I turned 11 my life was changed. After learning about the music of the 80's, my mind was set on learning guitar. At the time I was mainly influenced by the legendary Eddie Van Halen & ex Duran Duran guitarist, Andy Taylor. I then started learning some Van Halen songs such as "Panama", "Unchained", "Dreams", "Top of the World" etc & songs off of Andy Taylor's solo record, "Thunder". And that right there explains my first YouTube user name - Thunder9513. After that, I progressed pretty quickly as a player.

Later on, I got into more flashy players like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Randy Rhoads, John Petrucci , Paul Gilbert & George Lynch and honed my "skills" as much as I could. I learned some of there songs and tried to understand how they thought while playing and I also adapted some of there methods to my own playing. And meeting some of them in person was also a big thing for my playing. You can see photos of me with them HERE.

My preferred styles of playing are rock, metal, progressive and alternative instrumental(which reflects the sound of my upcoming album). However, I do enjoy playing Blues, Contemporary Christian, Progressive Metal, Metal & Hard Rock. I also play christian contemporary music at my church playing for the Sr Hi Youth Group and in the sanctuary with playing alongside names like Dick Wells, Chad Clark and Lynn Keller.

At the present time I still play guitar everyday. I record new songs every month and I am already working on my 2nd album. I am very honored to be endorsing companies like DiMarzio, Morley Pedals, Halo Guitars, AWE-In-ONE Picks, Guitar Pro 6 & AMT Electronics USA. I have used some of these products since I started out, such as, Guitar Pro, DiMarzio and Morley. I really believe in all these companies and I feel so blessed that they believe in me too.

I am also now giving Skype guitar lessons via webcam to students in different parts of the world. I love teaching, it forces you to analyze your own playing and try to explain how you approach things. I have been teaching for a while now, and I really enjoy it. If you would like to study and learn with me email me through my contact form or check out this page HERE.

Thanks for checking out my website and music!

-Eric