He came up in the late-80s shred era and was a member of Poison and Mr. Big in the ’90s, but these days, Richie Kotzen is focused on making inventive guitar music for the modern age.
Guitar-driven music as we know it over the last forty-plus years simply doesn’t exist without Shrapnel Records founder, Mike Varney.
Freidman’s take-no-prisoners approach, coupled with his refusal to conform to the standards of the zeitgeist, allowed the Les Paul-wielding polymath to untether his aerodynamic style unto the masses, hot wiring the brains of a generation to come through his work in both the instrumental guitar and thrash metal arenas.
The virtuoso guitar boom of the late 1980s was a particularly fertile, and invigorating time for guitar-drive music. While many of its participants have come and gone, Vinnie Moore is not only one of the last standing, but he’s thriving to boot.
