Geek to Guitar Hero
...Alex Skolnick became the lead guitarist of thrash metal band Testament at age 16. He was the band's youngest member, and by the time he was 18, they had their first record deal. By age 19, he was touring the world. Today, naturally, he fronts a titular jazz trio. He tells the wild tales of his transition to jazz in his new biography, Geek to Guitar Hero, which he wrote without a co-author...About the book's title: Onstage, Skolnick shreds with confidence. Offstage, he has struggled his whole life with feeling out of place and socially awkward. Alex Skolnick, revered the world over as one of the greatest living guitar players, is painfully shy...There might be writers who look at a guitarist who writes his own book with a jaundiced eye. However, Skolnick's words are eloquent and insightful and frequently entertaining. Geek is an engaging read, and, in the context of the author's dutiful, DIY personality, it makes a whole hell of a lot of sense that he chose not to use a co-writer. The story is his, after all. And for someone who has battled insecurities for as long as he can remember, it's fearless. --The Village Voice, December 19-25, 2012If every child of sixties Berkeley Jewish intellectuals quit playing piano after a brief period of frustrating lessons and, deflated by family failures, was deemed never to be a musician, but then turned fate on its ear to end up not just a prodigy metal guitarist but one of the world s most agile rock/jazz virtuosos, Alex Skolnick s memoir wouldn t be the inspiring read that it is. Here is an honest, raw, articulate story of a life whose problems were forged in the crucible of music into something triumphant. --Bradford MorrowIf you come to Alex Skolnick s memoirs simply expecting the thrash-metal version of Motley Crüe s The Dirt, you re going to be challenged Skolnick is a searching, opinionated and fearless thinker. He opens up the Bay Area 80 s metal scene, shedding light on Metallica and Megadeth and crystallizing the strange moment when major labels were willing to risk money on burnouts pushing the boundaries of speed. Besides, no one in Crüe to my knowledge ever made love to a woman on a bowling-ball return machine. --Ned Vizzini