Born and raised in New Jersey, John Bushnell began his musical quest on guitar one month before turning nine. Inspired first by the Beatles, he eventually became immersed in the blues based players of the day. The techniques and sounds of Clapton, Jeff Beck, Mike Bloomfield, Albert King, Hendrix, Jimmy Page and guitar players too numerous to mention were all teachers to John's ears and he aspired to absorb as much from them as possible.
In high school he played in numerous bands and continued to develop his style. After graduating, he became a member of the Castle Browne Band and immediately began focusing on original material and playing the club scene three to four nights a week. In addition to working with the band, he landed a part time job at Princeton's McCarter Theatre as a stage/guitar tech for the many acts that passed through town. He worked with groups like the Beach Boys, Dr. John, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Ravi Shankar, Bruce Springsteen, Meatloaf, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker Band, Miles Davis, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. All gave John an amazing and diverse musical education as well as a chance to be up close and personal with the artists themselves.
After leaving the Castle Browne Band in the early 80's, he did a brief stint with Tom Bleck who was signed to RCA but quickly moved on to join the band, Bricks Mortar, with Charles Collins, house drummer for Sigma Sound Studios in Phila. and Michael Tschudin, producer and one time David Bowie keyboardist. The band was signed to Sutra Records and recorded an EP but eventually recorded their own album and released it on Zebra Records.
Around this time, John was approached by the Ibanez guitar company and found himself being featured in an ad campaign for one of their new models in Guitar Player, Musician, Guitar World and other publications. This relationship grew and he became a demonstrator of their guitars and effects at the NAMM trade shows, as well as, the Guitar and Music Expo held at Madison Square Garden.
By the late 80's, John had left Bricks Mortar and formed a power trio known as Unguided Missile with Angel Resto on bass and Peter Browne on drums, who was later replaced by Mark Sacco. They played a blues and hard rock style of music throughout the tri-state area. It was at this same time that John was picked to host the “Virtuoso Guitar Series” at a top New York City club. John continued to write material and explore more guitar possibilities. Ibanez gave John one of the first 7 string guitars, which he used on his first solo album entitled “7th Sense”. The album received favorable reviews in the U.S. and Europe.
John next formed a group with Hal Selzer on bass. Adrian Dodz, as it was called, played relentlessly all over the tri-state area and recorded a CD of hard rocking material which got the band signed to Epic Records. Years later, the recordings from this band were picked up by Escape Records and released in Europe and Japan under the name “Silent Witness”.
Through all the years of writing, recording and playing in different bands, John has worked on many movie scores and recording sessions for other artists in virtually every style of contemporary music. At the present time he is working at the Pennington School where he created and teaches the Blues/Pop/Rock Ensemble, and shares his knowledge of the recording and the music business.
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