Chris Arvan

Chris Arvan is an American guitarist and producer. Arvan was a member of Racer X for a short time after Paul Gilbert's departure for Mr. Big. He also appears in the instructional videos of Juan Alderete and Bruce Bouillet playing "Scarified" and "She Wants Control".

Career
Chris Arvan was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, specifically in the Burlingame/San Mateo area just south of San Francisco. He took guitar lessons in Burlingame at the local Rec Center, but was mostly self-taught. before moving on to playing in bands at 15. He was influenced by Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Van Halen, and Yngwie Malmsteen.

Arvan saw Racer X perform at The Stone in San Francisco at age 16, and heard their song "Scarified" on a 45 demo from a magazine. After Gilbert's departure from the band, Arvan received a call from bassist Juan Alderete inviting him to a jam. After successfully proving his skill on guitar, he was added as the replacement guitarist in Racer X. During his tenure in Racer X, Arvan occasionally taught at GIT.

Despite successfully replacing Paul Gilbert, the band did not last long after Arvan's addition and broke up that same year. Following the dissolution of Racer X, Arvan moved into production. Of Arvan's dismissal, Bruce Bouillet said in a 2014 interview, "[...] from my point of view, Paul was Racer X. We hired Chris, who is a great player, to fill in since we had a few shows left."

In footage of a private lesson with Bruce from the early 90's, he is asked about Chris Arvan's whereabouts after the breakup of Racer X. He answers that "he tripped out or something. He's got a computer studio now where it's all computer, digital music and stuff. He got into raves and shit like that, you know, doing house music and stuff." When his student remarks that Arvan was capable of replacing Gilbert "and then some", Bruce laughs and remarks, "He wasn't fucking around, there's no doubt about it."

Style
Bruce Bouillet talks about Chris' use of sliding to hit additional notes in arpeggio sequences.