2003 Leviathan Records 1. Mind Games 5. Chasing Rainbows 2. Prisoner Of Time 6. Armed & Ready 3. Day Of Doom 7. Hot Nights 4. Hurricane X 8. Destination

Mind Games
Based on one of the quintessential neo-classical grooves, and the classic 12/8 feel. I summoned up what I like to call the holy trinity of harmonic minor playing for influence on this track. Ritchie Blackmore, Yngwie Malmsteen and Uli Jon Roth. These are the men that wrote the book on this type of playing.

Prisoner Of Time
A mid-tempo old school hard rock type of bit on this track. Think Rainbow meets early Michael Schenker Group. I'm definitely going for the Schenker vibe in a huge way on this one. I got the wah in that midrange boost filter position and I'm playing minor scale runs with old school pentatonic playing.

Day Of Doom
My playing on this one is just as dark and evil as the title track. Back in the mid to late '80's two of my favorite instrumental albums were Yngwie Malmsteen's "Rising Force" and David T Chastain's "Instrumental Variations". David has a cool way of mixing demonic riffing and harmonic minor legato playing.

Hurricane X
They should rename this one the Blackmore Shuffle because that's exactly where I'm drawing from. It's also in the official Ritchie Blackmore G minor key (tuned down 1/2 step). I couldn't hear a strong theme type of melody on this tune so I just went with the track and rocked out extremely hard!

Chasing Rainbows
Cool riff and cool melody as well. More of a straight ahead metal type of thing here. With this speedy fast tempo it's a fun track to blaze it up on. My goal on this one was to make the playing totally over the top but still build it up and let it flow. It just gets plain sick with all those notes flying everywhere.

Armed & Ready
Kind of a dirty, bluesy hard rock groove. I'm laying into the tones really heavy on this one and keeping it more traditional in spots. A heavy Gary Moore type of bit. His early hard rock/metal albums had a huge impact on my playing. I'd buy those albums and then proceed to learn every solo!

Hot Nights
This one gets close to many of the things on my solo records, same as the first track Mind Games. You have that dark harmonic minor, classically influenced playing mixed with speed metal overtones. And it certainly does have that live type of feel with the way it builds up into a frenzy after the breakdown.

Destination
On this one I broke out my Rotovibe, my wide sweep Hendrix wah and went for the total Jimi type of psychedelic blues vibe. I listen to Jimi constantly and always find new things in his incredible playing to inspire me. This one is my favorite track on the disc. I plan on doing a lot more Hendrix inspired stuff soon.