ALEX MASI

i was born in venice, italy, started listening to music at an early age, my parents were always playing classical and jazz albums and the very first piece of music i remember hearing (other than the rattles in my crib) was "toccata and fugue in d minor" by bach... left an immense impression on me and many years later when i recorded it on my bach album i felt a sort of circle completing itself...

we had a housekeeper that would bring lp's at our house and play them for my sister and i when my parents were out... beatles, stones, hendrix... it felt magical, like a secret society... but it wasn't until years later when i started playing guitar that i really started checking out the rock world.

first i started to play piano, studied theory etc. and then picked up the drums (pans & pots)... then at 12 a schoolmate showed me his new nylon strings guitar an played me 3 chords and i knew that was the key to girls and the only way for me to be popular in school... i learned those same 3 chords and also took some lessons but then it was seeing ritchie blackmore on tv that made me realize i had to be a lead guitar player... to a european kid in the 70s ritchie was the ultimate in coolness and virtuosity...

then later i got into progressive rock, yes, genesis, gentle giant, tull, etc... i loved the fact that those guys were erasing the limitations of rock music up to that point...

when the punk thing exploded in '77 i went in the exact opposite direction and buried myself underneath records by allan holdsworth, mclaughlin, henry cow, soft machine and went through a heavily jazz/experimental period and graduated at the conservatory in theory and harmony... then van halen reminded me that power and fun can coexist with musicality, i moved to london for awhile and jammed with a bunch of nwobhm people... came back to venice and started "dark lord", we released 2 eps, toured with some cool european bands and drank scary amounts of beer... that was a period that i still remember with fondness.

...i moved to los angeles in 1986 after a request made by a record company to join an already existing band.

that band later on was named after me...something i never felt too comfortable with...it was the era of the so called metal shredders and some record companies thought of building bands around us six-string wankers.

MASI (the band) made a couple of albums under that name and later on in the late 90s i released another couple of albums using the same monicker just to try to make it easier for people to recognize whom those records were from...

in 99 i released the first of a series of albums dedicated to composers i particularly love.

the first of course was bach (in the name of bach) followed by mozart in 2004 and beethoven in April of 2005. i intend to continue recording classical music from all periods and styles.

in my solo records i've always tried to keep things less predictable as possible...

neon shark and vertical invader are my early attempts at breaking away from what is expected of a "guitar hero"...

it was pretty humbling receiving the grammy nomination for neon shark, the same album on which allan holdsworth had guested...

MCM in 2004 was another proud moment musically...with john macaluso and randy coven we tried to incorporate some "outside" ideas and even quite a bit of indian music which has been a favourite of mine for the past seven years or so.

the goal is to continue to do always more interesting things, collaborate with stimulating musicians and develop artistically...

hopefully most of you out there will stay tuned and follow me in my musical trips...