Joey Tafolla

Joey Tafolla is an American guitarist from San Diego, California. He was a student of Paul Gilbert at GIT, and eventually worked with Paul on 1987's Out Of The Sun. He was also, for a time, the private guitar teacher of Buckethead.

Early life
Joey Tafolla was born at the Memorial Hospital in San Diego, California to Rosie Hamlin and Noah Tafolla. Tafolla's mother is the titular Rosie of the band Rosie & The Originals, whose song "Angel Baby" was a smash hit in the United States. His father was the guitarist of that band, as well as Hamlin's high school sweetheart. His parents divorced when he was young.

At 11 years old, he began to play his father's guitar until receiving his own. At the time of his high school graduation in 1980, the hair metal scene was starting to form in Los Angeles. He later joined L.A. metal band Jag Panzer and recorded with them on the Ample Destruction album in 1984.

Tafolla was signed on as a salaried employee of Rocshire Records at 19. During his tenure, he had the opportunity to see a pre-fame Yngwie Malmsteen. The label went under when its owners were caught embezzling money from Hughes Aircraft.

Out Of The Sun
In 1986, Tafolla began a working relationship with Mike Varney. He would call Varney from a payphone, and Varney would play Tafolla demos from Vinnie Moore, Tony MacAlpine, and Racer X. He asked Varney if he could take lessons from Tony MacAlpine, to which Varney responded affirmatively. Tafolla sold all his belongings and moved to San Francisco, taking lessons from MacAlpine and living on his couch.

Despite his working relationship with Varney and continuous submission of demo tapes, Tafolla was never featured in the Guitar Spotlight column. Since Varney had already signed him, promotion of him in the magazine as an artist would represent a conflict of interest. Tafolla was disappointed, but still held Varney in high regard.

Later, Tafolla moved down to Los Angeles and began taking lessons from Paul Gilbert at GIT.

In 1987, Tafolla released his first solo album, Out Of The Sun, on Shrapnel Records. The album was a collection of instrumental neoclassical shred pieces, and several of the tracks feature Paul Gilbert on guest solos. Tony MacAlpine plays all the keyboard parts on the album, and Yngwie bassist Wally Voss played solos on "Eternity's End" and "Stalingrad" (in addition to all the bass parts on the album).

Out Of The Sun was heavily inspired by Tony MacAlpine's Maximum Security and Yngwie Malmsteen's solo albums. Much of the album was recorded with MacAlpine's B.C. Rich guitars, and Tafolla reports that the recording of the album was very stressful and diminished his confidence as a musician. During the recording, he was offered a chance to audition for Ozzy Osbourne's band but declined due to his waning confidence.

Post-1987
Around this time, Tafolla began giving guitar lessons to a 16-year old Buckethead. He recalls that he was one of the first people that Buckethead told about his plans to don the KFC bucket and hockey mask, and that he told Buckethead that it was an ill-conceived idea.

After Out Of The Sun,Tafolla moved into a blues-rock style more akin to Joe Satriani and Richie Kotzen. His next two solo releases, Infra-Blue and Plastic, were recorded in this style.