Toshi Iseda

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Toshi Iseda (born in Chicago, Illinois) is a guitarist.
At a young age he decided to pick up the guitar after seeing his uncle, Jeff Brown, play. Toshi has been a guitarist since the 8th grade.
In the beginning of Toshi’s career, he was inspired by listening to many different genres of music. He was mostly inspired by the music of KISS, Aerosmith, and Peter Frampton. Peter Frampton’s song, “Do You Feel Like We Do” had an intense effect on Toshi. These musical influences are what motivated him to practice up to 2 hours a day in the beginning. As Toshi got older, he acquired more serious influences which included: Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Randy Rhoads, Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, and Adrian Vandenberg (when playing in the band Vandenberg). Toshi began practicing more hours after reading about how Michael Schenker would practice up to 4 hours a day in an interview in Guitar Player Magazine. Soon Toshi decided to up the amount of practicing he did daily to a total of 5 hours. Eventually his schedule accounted for 15 hours of practicing. This 15 hour practice schedule included Toshi’s classical guitar studies that he later picked up after hearing about Rhoads’ classical influences. Toshi’s classical guitar influences are as follows: Christopher Parkening, Adreas Segovia, Liona Boyd, John Williams and Julian Bream. Later Toshi’s rock influences grew to include Tony MacAlpine, Vinne Moore, Paul Gilbert (circa Racer X), George Lynch, Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, and Jason Becker (basically the whole Shrapnel Records collection).
Toshi was different that many of his other guitar wielding friends because he was also influenced by a huge array of other guitarists that weren’t in the hard rock genre. Some of his influences were Ernie Isley, Al Mckay (from Earth Wind and Fire), and George Benson. Blues guitarists were also influential to Toshi as well. Those guitarists include: Stevie Ray Vaughn, B.B. King, Johnny Winter and Robert Johnson. Toshi’s guitar skills began to grow and he again developed other influences like guitarist Steve Morse, Al DiMeola, Allan Holdsworth, John McLaughlin and Bill Conners.
Education and Career
In both 1985 and 1986, Toshi entered and won the ‘Hot Licks’ contest. He is the only guitarist to ever win two years in a row. Soon after, he received a scholarship to the one and only Berklee College of Music, in Boston, where he majored in Music Education, Music Synthesis, and Performance. While at Berklee, he was consistently approached by his classmates and asked for training on the techniques of that time. He began teaching and eventually he had enough students to support himself financially. From that time until 2001, Toshi averaged teaching over 50 hourly students a week. This dedication earned him the position as the number one guitar instructor in Chicago. In 2001, Toshi briefly stopped teaching due to other career obligations.
During 1988 and 1989, Toshi joined up with C. Bruce Ost, Aerosmith’s keyboardist, who had just gotten off tour and formed the band called ‘Shoot, Shoot’. ‘Shoot, Shoot’ became one of Boston’s most popular bands. Toshi’s adventures with ‘Shoot, Shoot’ came to an end when he left the group to form his own groups, ‘Clyde’ and then ‘Autumn Lords’ which featured both Tony MacAlpine and bassist Mike Jacques.
Tapes were then submitted to Mike Varney and John Stix and were soon featured in both Guitar Player Magazine’s “Spotlight” column (July) and Guitar FPM’s “Resume” column (November) in 1990. In 1991, Toshi received a call from Columbia recording artist Heaven’s Edge and was invited to join the group. After joining the group, Toshi moved to New Jersey where the band was located and played with them for about ten months.<ref name="nv"/> After those ten months, Toshi moved to New York City to be closer to a major music capital and pursue other music endeavors. In New York, Toshi picked back up on teaching privately and also began teaching at the American Institute of Guitar in Manhattan. Toshi has also been a visiting instructor at the Musicians Institute in Tokyo, Japan and is a former faculty member of the National Guitar Workshop.
After Toshi moved to NYC he decided to start playing 7-string guitars which was a key turning point in his musical life. Now, Toshi plays 7-string guitars solely and is known as the chief rock player and authority on 7-string guitars. Currently, he owns 109 7-strings.
Magazine Features and CDs
Throughout his career, he has been featured in many guitar and music magazines worldwide. Some of those US titles are: Guitar Player, Guitar World, Guitar/Guitar One, and The Guitarist Network. International titles include: Young Guitar, Guitar FPM, Guitar Magazine (Japan), Musica Pro (South America), Guitar Chef (Italy), and many others. Toshi has also written several instructional columns for many guitar magazines. He has also been featured on more than 14 CD’s which includes all four of Guitar World Magazine’s ‘Indie Bin’ CD’s. He is the only guitarist to be asked to be on all four CD’s. Toshi’s first solo CD was released in 1998 and titled ‘Full On!’ from Over The Top! Records. It featured guest artists Tony MacAlpine, Mike Terrana (Tony MacAlpine, Yngwie J. Malmsteen), Andy West (Dixie Dregs, Vinnie Moore), Eddie Head (Haji’s Kitchen), and others. He has also collaborated with bassist Andy west to record and co-produce ‘RAMA 1’ on Magna Carta Records.<ref name="billboard"/> This project also features such renown musicians as drummers, Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment, Avenged Sevenfold), Rod Morgenstein (Dixie Dregs, Winger, Jazz is Dead), Jonathan Mover (Joe Satriani, einstein) and keyboardist Jens Johanssen (Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Stratovarious), T. Lavitz (Dixie Dregs, Jazz is Dead) and Mike Keneally (Frank Zappa, Steve Vai).<ref name="nv"/>
2011
Currently, Toshi resides in Tennessee and is the Editor-In-Chief of a new online magazine that will release its debut issue in July 2011 called, Intense Guitar! Magazine.<ref name="nv"/> He has also taken on the role as a master class instructor at Camp Jam 2011 in two locations, Nashville and Chicago. Toshi has also been featured in Dana Shelton’s book titled, You Rawk! Worldwide that comes out in 2011. He is also recording his next solo CD and owns and operates ‘All Access Recording and Rehearsal’ studios that is located outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Toshi plays in his own instrumental solo band and the hard rock vocal oriented group called ‘Ego Machines’.
Sponsors
Toshi is endorsed by the following: Intex Cables, TonePros (Stop Tail pieces), Tech 21 (SansAmp), Ovation (Acoustics), Morley (Wah pedals, Volume pedals and ABY boxes), Krank Amps, Keeley Electronics, FloydUpgrades.com, Floyd Rose (Tremolos), Eventide (Harmonizers), Ernie Ball (Strings), Dunlop (Picks), DiMarzio (Pickups & Straps), Digitech (Effect Pedals), Audix (Microphones), and Tunerguard.

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