Joe Pinnavaia
Since Joe was about 4 years old he took a liking to the guitar. After breaking many of them as a young child his Father got him an acoustic when he was 10. Which he also later broke and his Father tried to glue back together. Before breaking it he was jamming to AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Scorpions records which laid a foundation of Rock music and helped develop rhythm. “I would just play the root notes of the chords because I didn’t know what chords were. If the guitar had 6 strings I only needed two of them.”
It was when Joe was 12 that he heard Eddie Van Halen and his parents got him a stereo and the first Van Halen album that his direction with guitar changed. “I started listening more to the mechanics of the guitar and what Eddie did really made me want to pick up the guitar and play. I wanted to know more about it. The desire to do those things is what drove me to do more and eventually start taking lessons.” Joe went to Villa Maria College and started studying classical guitar as well as Jazz. Also playing in the Jazz ensemble there with James Kurzdorfer, the original bass player from the group Spyro Gyro. After that he went to University at Buffalo and continued studying the classical guitar. “ I wanted to get out and play gigs. The classical mindset is so schooled and rigid that many of the college level players couldn’t improvise. You couldn’t jam with anyone there. If you had sheet music in front of them they would kill it but take that away and give them a Jazz chart - they would be lost.”
It was this knowledge seeking that led Joe to discover more guitar players and was in the direct line of influence from the likes of Eric Johnson, Greg Howe, Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani, and Steve Vai but then much later on discovered Hendrix and Jeff Beck and Allan Holdsworth.
Joe played in a couple bands in High school but nothing that ever performed publicly. Joining Jazz Ensemble in High school gave him his first exposure to Jazz. “I found Jazz to be strange and most things I played made no sense at all. I was learning scales and everything was in a flat key which I didn’t have the fretboard knowledge yet.” Joe started listening to both Jazz and Classical composers and discovered a whole new world outside of the Rock bands that he grew up with. That combination of genres helped shape his playing to be more diverse and launched him into the world of improvisation. “To me, being able to call up and idea and execute it in real time shows the skill level of the player. There are a lot of players that script ideas or licks and I didn’t want to be that type of player. It might work for recording a solo or if you are working on a melody where it has to be specific. But I find so many great ideas that just come out even in the studio that can be built on. That excites me.”
After college he went on to teach giving lessons at all of the Music stores in the area and later started teaching at TrueFire.com which is one of the largest websites for guitar players to learn from in the world.
Joe has done some solo recordings and his first effort was picked up by Steve Vai’s Digital Nations label in 2011. Not able to put a touring band together that fell through. “It was a great confirmation that I could exist among those players on his label at that time. I still have the contract with his Signature on it.” Joe has released more music and as worked with some original artists over the years and continues to play with some cover bands as well a Duo and power trio.
Joe joined Analog Kids in 2021 and has been enjoying the process of learning the music of RUSH. “I was asked by Nat to join and at first I thought - no way. I can’t play Lifeson. I knew some RUSH tunes but to do a tribute you have to present as many of their tunes which included the deeper cuts. There is so much of their music I didn’t know about and that has been great in rediscovering it. I look at it as being an Artisan much like how the Orchestras of today bring us the music from centuries ago. It is needed to carry it forward and to keep people inspired like we were listening to their music.”
Outside of Music Joe enjoyed a 25 year career as a Registered Nurse and recently crossed into the IT field working on applications and Cloud environments. He is married with one son and enjoys being a nerdy homebody while playing Rocket League, DuoLingo and watching YouTube videos on his days off.
