Hot Shot

My name is Szabolcs Matyas. I started to play the guitar in 1983. My only teacher was a Hungarian gipsy jazz player, László Gábor. My early heroes were Ritchie Blackmore, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi, Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee, Carlos Santana, Angus Young and Ace Frehley. Later I discovered the music of Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Allan Holdsworth. My biggest Hungarian influences are István Alapi, Zoltán Fábián, Tamás Szekeres, Péter Lukács, Tibor Tátrai, Géza Fehér, Miklós Birta, Nándor Váczy and Zoltán Fejes. You can find a few of them among my top friends. We won a lot of competition for young talents with my band, Notre Dame (1989-1997) and I was the winner among upcoming young guitarists in 1992. Thanks to the friendship of Hungarian guitar virtuoso, István Alapi I became the guitarists of the popular soft rock band, Azok a Fiúk in 1994. Unfortunatelly, this period did not lasted too long. New musical trends swept away most of Hungarian rock bands in the middle of 90's. I joined my recent band, Hot Shot in 1999.Hot Shot started on its musical journey early in the 90's. The line-up has changed continously in the meantime. Only the drummer is the same out of the charter member. The latest line-up started to work together in 2002. Besides Hot Shot, members have side projects. Attila (lead vocals) has just released an album with Hungarian guitar virtuoso Istvan Alapi (Alapítvány: Jelek a horizontról) and you can hear his bagking vocal on many Hungarian rock and pop albums. Balázs (keyboards) has assisted several times Jeff (famous Hungarian tribute band for TOTO) and Ildikó Keresztes (famous Hungarian rock vocalist). I have appeared in different prog rock projects (Catwalk, Mutatványosok) and played some guest solos (among Keiko Kumagai, Chris Brooks, Zoltán Fábián, István Alapi, Sándor Szabó) on an upcoming international prog rock album (The Goddess Nemesis Project: The Play is the Thing). In live Hot Shot plays cover songs too from different bands like Journey, Toto, Europe, Extreme, Van Halen, Deep Purple, Gary Moore, Steve Vai, Jimi Hendrix etc. Our new album will be released in 2008.My gears to date: 1. Guitars: Ibanez AT300AV, Ibanez JEM 7VBK, Fender Heartfield Talon, Schecter Jeff Loomis Model (7 string) 2. Amp: Laney TT 50 Head, Laney 4x12" TT cabinet 3. Effects: Rocktron Expression, Morley Bad Horsie II. wah, Boss OD-3 overdrive, Rocktron Midi Mate, Boss GS-10 (for home recording)