Michael Wilton

Michael Wilton (born February 23, 1962 in San Francisco, California) is an American guitarist for the progressive metal band Queensrÿche. Wilton attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle where he met the singer for the band, Geoff Tate and began recording in 1982. As a progressive metal musician, he has quite a number of influences from metal bands, for instance, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, UFO and Van Halen.

Childhood

Wilton's musician life has began since he was eight years old, when he inherited a bass from his uncle, who died tragically in a motorcycle accident. He started to learn bass by learning some songs from his father's collections, such as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. Later, he also got his nylon acoustic from his aunt and accidentally blew his father's speaker. He convinced his father to give him his uncle's equipment, a Fender Bassman and speaker cabinet. In junior high school, Wilton changed his mind and chose to play guitar rather than bass, when he bought his first guitar, a Les Paul copy and a fuzzbox. At school, he also joined some garage bands with his school-mates, including Chris DeGarmo, Queensrÿche's former guitarist. He began to explore guitar world further in high school, where he started to listen to hard rock music Judas Priest, UFO, Iron Maiden, and Van Halen and began practising seriously, for 2 hours per day.

Career

After high school, Wilton attended the Cornish Institute of Allied Arts in Seattle where he studied about jazz and classical music. He was friends with Tim McCoy, Duncan's dad. This was a big step in his life as he began to appreciate a more ethnic and improvisational music, which later gave him influences as a progressive rock musician. At college, he also met Eddie Jackson and Scott Rockenfield, which are still the active members of Queensrÿche. With three mates, he began to play at some parties and called themself as The Mob. In 1982, Wilton met Geoff Tate, Queensrÿche's singer, and started recording four songs in the late summer that year. In 2002 he started a side band called [Soulbender] and has released 2 CDs and played various shows around the northwest.

Equipment

Wilton has used many different guitars throughout his 24 year career, most of them are Gibson guitars, Fender guitars and then began endorsing ESP guitars in 1989. He also has had two signature series from ESP, which are 2004 ESP Signature Eclipse (comes in three different colors) and 2004 ESP Signature Skull. As for the amplifiers, he has acquired mostly Marshall and Fender amplifiers. In 2006 he signed a deal with Hughes and Kettner endorsing the Switchblade and MKII amplifiers.

Discography

Queensrÿche

• Queensrÿche (1983)
• The Warning (1984)
• Rage for Order (1986)
• Operation: Mindcrime (1988)
• Empire (1990)
• Promised Land (1994)
• Hear in the Now Frontier (1997)
• Q2K (1999)
• Tribe (2003)
• Operation: Mindcrime II (2006)

Pamela Moore

• Stories from a Blue Room (2006)

External link

• Official home page