Virtuoso Shred Guitar with Toby Knapp
By Thomas Amoriello
NAfME Council for Guitar Education Chair
In the arts, it has always been a universal belief that in order to be successful one needs to relocate to a city with a thriving scene. Places such as Hollywood (Tinsel Town), New York City (The City that Never Sleeps), and Nashville (Music City) have the nicknames to prove it. These cities have served as a Mecca for the music industry with their thriving night club life, industry insiders, and record label headquarters.
Fast forward to 2018, and with the access to home studio recording technology and Wi-Fi, you can distribute your music worldwide and have a virtual audience from any location. This brings us to Bighorn, Wyoming, with a population of 490 and the home of resident Toby Knapp.
Toby is known worldwide as a shred guitarist who plays on a level equal to the most widely recognized neoclassical shredders in the genre. (For more on shred guitar style, check out the June 22, 2017, NAfME “Music in a Minuet” blog, “Joe Who? Joe ‘Shredlord’ Stump, That’s Who! Heavy Metal Neo-Classical Style.”) The Wyomese heavy metal guitarist has maintained a consistent and respectable career from his rural home base since his 1993 Shrapnel Records debut, Guitar Distortion (SH-1063-2). Knapp wields a Stratocaster and is slightly more eclectic and non-commercial than his contemporaries exploring sub genres of Heavy Metal such as Black Metal, Death Metal, and European Power Metal, in addition to his adventurous instrumental work. Even his debut with Shrapnel was stylistically unorthodox at the time for the label, known for extreme soloing. Knapp’s recording focused on his rhythmic power chord chops—which were, of course, on the highest level.
Currently, Knapp records his music and also teaches via Skype from Bighorn. I want to thank Toby for granting an interview. It is the opinion of the author that Knapp should be more revered in the guitar and metal world. I encourage you to visit opens in a new windowwww.tobyknappmusic.com to check out his discography as well as encourage your students to view a few of his lesson clips on YouTube. Toby’s demos were chosen out of thousands of cassettes in the late 1980s to appear on the Shrapnel Label. This was the highest honor for a guitarist during the golden age of shred guitar. I was especially touched by his self-penned liner notes to his 2013 Shredguy Records release , Archives of Magick, Vol. II (SFR 13-006) which are a testament to his will,
“I’m back. I’m never leaving, and I’m never stopping. The day I am done with music is the day I am done with life. Fame? No. Media Coverage? NO. Endorsements? No. Money? No. A loyal fanbase holding a double CD compilation in their hands and reading these words? Yes.”