Michael Angelo Batio

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Michael Angelo Batio (IPA: [bæ: ti o]) is an American instrumental rock/heavy metal guitarist and columnist from Chicago, Illinois. He attended Northeastern Illinois University and received a bachelor's degree in music theory and composition. Guitar One Magazine named him the fastest guitar player of all time.

Career
Batio began his recording career in the band Holland with vocalist Tommy Holland. Their Atlantic Records album, Little Monsters, met with moderate success in the mid-1980s. He later joined Jim Gillette on Gillette's solo album, Proud to Be Loud. The two metal stars, as well as bassist T.J. Racer and drummer Bobby Rock went on to found the metal band Nitro, releasing two albums. Nitro also filmed a music video for their song Freight Train among others which received air time on MTV.

Batio has been playing guitar since the age of ten, and could play faster than his teacher within two years. He plays as a right-handed person even though he is left-handed. He has stated at guitar clinics that he is ambidextrous teaching himself to play two guitars at the same time — either in synchronized or separate harmonies. He also invented and successfully played the very first 'quad' guitar. However, the instrument was stolen during a Nitro show in El Paso, Texas, and only two of the four parts required for its assembly have ever been recovered. It is because of this that he has not played the quad guitar in many years. However, Dean Guitars recently finished production on a new quad guitar for Batio. [2] The Double Guitar [3] is another of his innovations, which he commonly uses live, but never in studio recordings. Another innovation of his is a type of string dampener (specifically "The MAB String Dampener"), a guitar accessory attachable behind the nut of the guitar and flipped into active position during performance. The string dampener eliminates unnecessary buzz and noise from the guitar's strings, allowing the player to easily use legato techniques and finger-tapping techniques without any unwanted sounds. He is also noted for his "MAB Over-Under technique", which he invented, where he flips his hand over and under the neck, approaching the strings from above, then below, instead of from under the neck like other guitar players.

He has also had a long-term relationship with Dean Guitars, promoting their equipment and leading Dean-sponsored guitar clinics around the world to teach his techniques. Batio has released two popular instructional DVDs, entitled Speed Lives and Speed Kills. The other one was intended to teach fellow guitarists how to play his pieces of music. Furthermore, he is releasing a DVD featuring his Double Guitar Solo, which can now be seen on the Dean Guitars website[4]. It features tribute covers of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze and Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train, with Batio's full backing band.

Batio mentions on his official website ,"I am left handed so my right or "picking" hand was overall, the weakest part of my playing. I worked for 2 years in my early teens to master alternate picking while later working on tapping. Basically, anything and everything I could to strengthen my right hand. I started out being a purely legato player. You would never know that now. I concentrated on my 2 weakest areas- Alternate picking and tapping and perfected those. I am a firm believer in working on something you are deficient in. Once you master a technique that gives you "trouble", other areas of your playing improve dramatically."

Batio taught guitarist Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fame) while Batio was attending college. Tom has credited MAB with teaching him in a feature article in Guitar World Magazine in 2005.

Batio currently writes "Time To Burn," a monthly column for Guitar World Magazine.

Batio has a Dean signature 6 string model tentatively due for release in Winter 2008 and has released a signature overdrive pedal from T-Rex of Denmark seen here.