Live From Nowhere is the 2010 CD release from Italian guitarist Steve Beach. Solid hard rock, played instrumentally, with no words, Beach lets his fingers do the talking on a CD that rocks hard and takes no prisoners. Although Beach falls into the instrumental hard rock, neo-metal rock guitar, there’s some alternating and shifting in the moods, certainly enough to make him of interest to fans of heavy hitters like Joe Satriani, to name just one. There’s a solid backbeat in play here, and even an occasional sax solo, but not too much info on the CD as to who it is! Commenting on the eleven cut CD, Beach adds, ‘Live From Nowhere is the least 'guitar-centric' CD I could do. No hyper fast arpeggios, no ultrasonic notes or guitarist-only oriented licks, just my emotions.’ Even so, Beach finds a nice hard rock guitar chemistry and turns up the heat when he needs to. www.Guitar9.com

MUSIC WEB EXPRESS 3000 presents STEVE BEACH

Guitars Center Stage
Guitarists making waves in the music world,
their new recordings and gear!


Musical Background

When I was 8 my grandma bought me a very cheap acoustic guitar that I started playing when I was 10. I studied classical music for 5 years, then I moved into the electrical guitar world. My parents recommended to study jazz but, at the beginning, I was not so excited about that. In the meanwhile, I was fascinated by rock/metal bands like Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Van Halen, RacerX... so I started studying all these songs by myself and discovering their styles. As far as other instruments, I play bass guitar and piano a bit and sometimes I enjoy playing drums.

New CD


The name of my CD, Live From Nowhere comes from the difficulties that sometimes, musicians have in finding the right places to express their own musical ideas. The CD was recorded between Germany and Italy in October of 2009, I have good friends in both countries. Some musical parts were recorded in the traditional way, amplifiers and microphones while other parts where recorded using software like Guitar Rig or Amplitube. These are the programs I like most. I played almost all instruments except the sax in "Sky Full Of Stars" and piano in "Crystine".

My idea was just to create a CD not only oriented to guitar players. Until now I have played different music styles with different bands and I always try to be open-minded towards arts and music. In this regard I aimed at recording my emotions, avoiding to categorize my songs into a specific musical genre. Influences from metal, rock, jazz can be recognized in the whole CD.

Favorite Guitars

I usually play an Ibanez RG Prestige guitar with DiMarzio pickups (Super Distortion in the bridge and PAF Joe in the neck) and some others modifications like a killswitch button, etc... and an 80's Kramer guitar, maybe a Focus model, that I bought two years ago by chance. For me it sounds better then some brand new one thousand dollar Stratocaster. I mainly used these two guitars for the recording of my CD.

When I play jazz I usually play a ‘50s-60s unbranded guitar, with a DeArmond gold foil pickup in the neck. The strings I use are Elixir strings and D'Addario strings.

Regarding my amplification I use a Brunetti XL 120 head and cabinet, in my opinion it is perfect for rock, hard rock and metal. I have also a Marshall TSL 122 combo that I use for old style rock or if I have to play in small clubs.

During my gigs I prefer using pedal effects instead of rack effects, for me pedals are easier to setup and transport. When I record a song I like to experiment different sounds, so I also use rack effects and software like Guitar Rig or Amplitube.

The pedals I mainly use are: Dunlop CryBaby wah wah, Aphex compressor, Boss DS-1 Distortion with Keeley modification, Ibanez TubeScreamer, Boss BF-3 Flanger, Electro Harmonix Small Stone, Digitech DigiDelay and Roger Mayer Voodoo-Vibe. Depending on the music I play, sometimes I like to go straight into the amp using only the clean and dirty channels.

Regarding the keyboards I use a M-Audio KeyStudio 49i connected to my computer.

Musical Influences

I always tried to play and listen to every style of music, i.e., jazz, rock, metal, electronic music, new age, etc... so I always tried to be open-minded towards music.

I think that the artists that mostly influenced me were Bruce Springsteen, Iron Maiden, Miles Davis, Pat Metheny and Paul Gilbert.

Of course my favorite guitarist is Paul Gilbert, he's a fantastic guitarist and also a really nice guy.

The most influential albums... Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis, Get Out Of My Yard by Paul Gilbert and Bright Size Life by Pat Metheny.

Upcoming Plans


Well, at now I have three musical projects: a rock/acoustic project with a really good singer Christine... we are writing some new songs, a metal project, the band name is Mirages and my jazz band.

I have some gigs in December/January and a recording session with Mirages. We are recording 4 brand new songs.

Of course I am still working on instrumental stuff, and some good ideas are rising. I'm not in a hurry to record my new CD, I just look for new ideas and emotions in order to develop and improve my personal concept of music that started to appear in Live From Nowhere.

Web Site

My website is www.myspace.com/stevebeachguitar A new website will come on January with some new stuff.

If you want to contact me feel free to do it at stevebeachguitar@gmail.com

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