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MEMBERS
Name: Michael Pinnella
DOB: August 29th, 1969
POB: Point Pleasant Beach, NJ
Instrument: Keyboards
How + why did you start playing/ Early Influences/ Musical training/ First piece of gear, etc:
I was raised in a very musical family. I was constantly surrounded by music and loved to sit and play the piano composing my own little songs. There was an overwhelming feeling for me that you`could do anything through music. By age 4, I started taking my first piano lessons. I was influenced by Mozart first. I remember hearing his symphony #40 in A minor, and was just blown away by the rich textures he created with the orchestra. A little later I got an album called the "four Great Masters", it was a compilation of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin . I listened to it about ten times a day and quickly wore the lp down to nothing. I guess I was about 11 years old when I seriously started to train. I had various teachers who all had something to offer either in the way of technique, and musicality. They both go hand in hand. It was around the time of 10th grade I heard Malmsteen, and I was pretty excited. I begged my parents to buy me a keyboard, I think the Korg poly six was the hot board at the time, but I got a no-name organ/mono synth for $75 bucks instead. It wasn't until college, where I studied piano performance, theory/composition and counterpoint that the whole world of music started to unfold for me. I was part time the first year and did nothing but sight read anything and everything and started to get deep into the music of Bach. If you need help on voice leading, lock yourself in a room with the Brandenburg Concerti for four months, which was exactly what I did.
Later Development / Main Influences:
In college I started to mess around with keyboards and sequencers. My main influences at the time were Deep Purple, ELP, Kansas and DIO, which are still to this day some of my favorite bands. Malmsteen's Rising force was definitely an influence because of how he melded Barouqe music with metal. It was the first time I had ever heard anything like that. My favorite two types of music coming together.
How did you hookup with the band Symphony X:
After college I was teaching piano in a local music store. I wasn't in a band or doing anything with music at the time. There was a guitar teacher there who was good friends with Michael Romeo. This was going on about the same time Mike's solo album, The Dark Chapter, had made its way into Japan, spawned on by articles in guitar magazines. He already was working on songs with Tom Miller and I think he was in a hurry to find a keyboard player. Jim, the guy I worked with at the store, told Romeo "hey man, I know this keyboard player named Pinnella, he's really good. You should come down to the music store one night and check him out."
And that's just what he did - one cold November night in 1994 - The rest is history...
Important turning points in your musical career:
The main turning point was when I started to become serious about being a musician. The second was when I met Michael Romeo and became a member of Symphony X.
SOLO ALBUMS:
Enter By The Twelfth Gate (2004)
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