{"id":52523,"date":"2016-12-26T14:20:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-26T19:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/?p=52523"},"modified":"2016-12-26T14:26:26","modified_gmt":"2016-12-26T19:26:26","slug":"testament-alex-skolnick-reunited-with-stolen-guitars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/?p=52523","title":{"rendered":"TESTAMENT &#8211; Alex Skolnick Reunited With Stolen Guitars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/?attachment_id=52524\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-52524\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/alexskolnick-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-52524\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/alexskolnick-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/themetalden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/alexskolnick-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themetalden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/alexskolnick.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/?attachment_id=51404\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-51404\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/TMDDOTCOM-3-300x31.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"31\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-51404\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\nA vigilant Sam Ash employee recently helped reunite TESTAMENT guitarist Alex Skolnick with a few guitars that were stolen from him. Due to Skolnick&#8217;s hectic schedule this year, it turns out that he didn\u2019t even know that the guitars in question were lifted from a storage locker he had them housed in. <br \/>\nGo <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/12\/25\/nyregion\/a-fancy-guitar-to-sell-but-hard-to-play-in-handcuffs.html?smid=tw-nytmetro&#038;smtyp=cur&#038;_r=1\">HERE <\/a>for the full story.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nAlex Skolnick, born in 1968, grew up in Berkeley, California. At age nine, a fascination with the rock group Kiss led to a desire to learn guitar. At fourteen, he began lessons with a local teacher with a serious reputation &#8211; his name was Joe Satriani. At age sixteen, Alex tried out for a local band called Legacy. Shortly after graduating from high school, he found himself recording his first album with the group, who by this time had changed their name to Testament. What followed were five albums and countless tours with, among others, Megadeth, Slayer, Judas Priest, and White Zombie. Alex received critical acclaim for his lead guitar work, which had been inspired by heroes such as Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads, ranking high in many guitar magazine polls, often as \u2018Best Thrash Guitarist\u2019 and \u2018Most Underrated Guitarist.\u2019 In 1988, while working on the second Testament album, nineteen year old Alex happened to capture one of Miles Davis\u2019 guitar driven electric bands on television. This inspired an intense study of jazz, leading to, his eventual relocating to New York City, where he earned a BfA from New School University\u2019s jazz program (class of 2001).<\/p>\n<p>It was at the New School where Alex Skolnick Trio was born. AST bends the conviction of rock with the elegance and sophistication of jazz. Since their debut, AST has had an entire Jazz notes column in honored with 4 \u00bd stars by Downbeat, reviewed by Jazziz, The Village Voice and has charted on the JazzWeek radio charts. Fans of the group include international superstars Rodrigo &#038; Gabriella, who chose the trio as their support act on tours throughout the US and Europe in 2010 (and recruited Alex as a guest on their hit album 11\/11), Metallica\u2019s Robert Trujillo, who joined the band for an impromptu jam at Radio City Music Hall. The trio\u2019s latest record, Veritas, reached the Top Ten of the iTunes jazz charts, nestled in between Miles Davis and Esperanza Spalding, and is released via the highly respected jazz label, Palmetto Records.<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/?attachment_id=52525\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-52525\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/alexskolnickheadshot-241x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"241\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-52525\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/alexskolnickheadshot-241x300.jpg 241w, https:\/\/themetalden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/alexskolnickheadshot.jpg 401w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 241px) 100vw, 241px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\nIn 2005, after a hiatus of more than a dozen years, Alex rejoined Testament and helped bring the band back to the forefront of metal. Their 2008 album, The Formation of Damnation, was released on Nuclear Blast Records to critical acclaim. It was named SiriusXM Liquid Metal&#8217;s &#8216;Album of the Year,\u2019 Revolver \u2018Golden God &#8216;Album of the Year&#8217; and debuted at #59 on the Billboard Top 200 (Testament&#8217;s highest charting release in their 24-year history). Tours with Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Judas Priest, Heaven &#038; Hell and Motorhead followed. A follow up album, \u2018Dark Roots Of Earth\u2019 is planned for 2012. <\/p>\n<p>Alex has been involved in numerous other musical projects, including the platinum selling Trans-Siberian Orchestra and producing \u2018Accrasicauda,\u2019 the Iraqi refugee band featured in the film \u2018Heavy Metal In Baghdad.\u2019 And the past few years have found Alex almost as prolific in his writing and blogging as he is in his recording. Skolnick writes to a nationwide readership almost daily. His blog, SkolNotes, is listed by web aggregator AllTop.com as one of the most important in the music industry. (It\u2019s the only blog on that list written by an individual musician.) Thousands of fans follow his daily updates on both Twitter and Facebook, and tens of thousands more visit his personal website and YouTube videos. (Via Skolnick&#8217;s Facebook)<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/testamentlegions\/\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/testamentlegions\/<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AlexSkolnickFanPage\/\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AlexSkolnickFanPage\/<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\nSource: The PRP<br \/>\n<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A vigilant Sam Ash employee recently helped reunite TESTAMENT guitarist Alex Skolnick with a few&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}