My Guitar Heroes

Many guitarist and bands have influenced me in many different ways. The bands Im going to be talking about right now are secular(I have no convictions for listening to secular music because I think music is music just like being a teacher is being a teacher although some teachers are christians, it doesnt make them "christian teachers" in my mind anyway). First of all Chuck Schuldiner of Death and Control Denied fame, has a huge influence on my me. He blended jazz, classical, and death metal to make a super progressive sound. His lyrics were positive and as far as I know he was an awesome person. He passed away in 2001 from cancer and pneumonia. His guitar playing and vocal were amazing and have had a huge impact on my life. I dont believe he had God in his life but I found this on the internet--

Chuck once described himself as "a lover of life", "friendship", and "animals". "I would like to live forever, if it was possible", he once said in an interview. He commonly spoke out against artists who were "out of control", garnering negative attention to the death metal scene. Chuck openly condemned and disavowed stereotypes of metal musicians as being harmful to animals, people, or being "anti-life".
When asked about his opinions regarding an afterlife, Chuck responded "I don't know", but elaborated that he believed "this is hell", and that demons are in people, as they "create evil". Although his parents are both Jewish, Schuldiner did not go through any formal religious training. In the documentary, "666 At Calling Death", he was asked whether Satanism was a part of his music. He replied, "Not at all. I really don't want to involve any type of religious theme in our music. I think that's more of a personal thing. Yeah, I'm not a Satanist and I definitely don't put that into our music. No purpose. I was really young when the band first started out. I was never really into writing Satanic lyrics at all, personally. We did write gore lyrics, but it was more like kind of tongue-in-cheek, horror-movie type level. Nothing like encouraging people to go out and hurt themselves or anything stupid like that. It's pure fantasy-movie type, scary stuff. And then, I just really got into writing about reality, which is what we all have to deal with."

Next up is the band Pestilence. This band also had amazing ideas and incorporated many of the things that Death had in there last album "Spheres" which of course is my favorite. Patrick Mameli was the vocalist/guitarist on there last two and upcoming(YES!!)album. "Spheres" is 15 years old and I still listen to it and find something new everytime. My favorite part of Pestilence is their lyrics, written by the drumer, about space and stuff like that. They also have a knack for using crazy odd time signatures.

Last but certainly not least is Deron Miller of cKy fame. I came to know Deron's abilities first through Foreign Objects, his sci-fi death metal band which was pretty much a rip off of Pestilence's "Spheres"(no complaints though). But later on with Oil and finally cKy he definately grew as a musician and guitarist. I have had the pleasure of seeing cKy live and meeting Deron myself. He is an awesome person. He did have a battle with alcohol not too long ago and he does say some vulgar words, but thankfully not in his music. He feels as thought they are a cheap ploy to draw in people much like R rated movies. Nowadays cKy's fourth album is on the horizon and Deron's side project, World Under Blood, is finishing up their debut album. Now WUB is a death metal band and is remnicient of Foreign Objects, but with no Sci-Fi and lots of melodic vocals along with the growls. Deron is awesome and to me is up there with Chuck Schuldiner.

Well those are my three of my favorite guitarists, Im sure Ill add more later and Im thinking of posting some of my thoughts and beliefs on christianity as a whole. I promise you thought I love Jesus Christ and KNOW he died for me and Im definately a christian...just some aspects of "christians" anger me. Afterall even a dc TALK song (what if I stumble) had a soundclip that said "One of the biggest causes of Atheism in the world today is christians..." I'll get back to that on my next post. Praise the lord.