About Me
Gianluca was born in November 1969 near the
city of Siena in Tuscany, Italy;
he started playing guitar when he was
about seven years old studying different styles,
from classical music through jazz to rock.
He spent several years
for the study of classical music
with the Director of the "Plectrum Orchestra"
in Siena, the most important classical
Orchestra in the city.
That was a very important period before
going with the study of jazz guitar ..ing from the middle of the 80's 'till the beginning of
the 90's Gianluca concentrates himself in developing jazz technique with some of the most important
Italian jazz musicians as Tommaso
Lama (Pavarotti, Mina), Enrico Rava etc.
In 1988 he is a founder member of the rock
band Mad Mice: this is the first occasion to write and to play original rock music. After a couple of years full of live gigs , about 12 demo tapes and 6 Sampler CDs (one of
them only for the German market), Mad Mice got very good feedback in specialized rock magazines and a growing interest during concert activities. They are often called as guest in national Italian TV Shows appearing also on MTV Europe and VIVA Germany.
In 1991 Gianluca is the winner of the italian
competition "Rock Contest" as best guitar player.
In 1993 Mad Mice is the first Italian rock band singing in english to be produced from a foreign record company: so the band records its first album "Welcome to the mousetrap" near Hamburg in Germany.
In 1994 the sampler "Start it up !"
is released for the german market
and Mad Mice are present with the song "Don't call me Jesus". This compilation was very successful
in Germany. Meanwhile in Italy Mad Mice made
a mini-tour for Amnesty International.
In 1996, after many years of live concerts
and didactic activity, Gianluca moves to Hamburg, Germany where he starts playing with local musicians and teaching guitar. He works for a period at the Gibson Custom Shop office in Hamburg where he has the chance to meet international producers and musicians like Rudolph Schenker (Scorpions), Manny Charlton (Nazareth), the producers Wayne Morris and Graham Laybourne, Tav Falco, Marcus Deml (Kingdom Come, Saga), Kalle Trapp (prod. Uriah Heep, Saxon), Lenny Wolf (Kingdom Come), David Browl (Randy Crawford) Dirk Steffens (prod. Pink Cream 69) etc.
In 1998 he records the new CD with the band Mantra, a new evolution of Mad Mice.
In the same year it is released in Italy the guitar method "Arrangement for the rock guitar", published by C.G.M. of Bergamo. This is his first guitar method, a very complete book about arrangement in guitar rock music. Meanwhile Gianluca makes some important television works, making jingles for Mediaset (Italia 1, Canale 5 and other national Televisions as Rai, Telemontecarlo and so on) and also releasing the music for the TV program called Rally, the most important italian TV show about rally car-races.
Gianluca is since 1993 endorser for the company Gibson Guitars and for many years he has been endorser for D. De Salvo Strings too.
Actually he endorses:
Gibson Guitars, Dogal Music Strings, Emagic Softwares, Pickfactory Picks.
From 1999 to 2002 Gianluca's instrumental production is produced Planet Music recording, a specialized guitar record company in Brescia, Italy and published by Two Music Publishing; the production of the first Mantra CD titled Roots is under the Lucretia Records International in Milano and published both by Warner Chappell and Two Music Publushing.
In 2002 Gianluca enters the prog-metal band Time Machine from Milan playing in the summer of the same year at the Gods of Metal Festival with bands like Manowar, Paradise Lost, Blind Guardian,Running Wild, Virgin Steele and many others. After that Gianluca and Time Machine take part to many TV shows as guest at Rock TV, a very important satellite television of the SKY group. In 2004 Gianluca records the new Time Machine album titled Reviviscence release by Lucretia Records int. In Italy, Massacre in Germany, Asia and Australia, NTS in France and
Lasers Edge in USA and Canada. In the summer 2003 Gianluca plays again at the Gods of Metal Festival this time with the band Mantra; this is a very special GOM for him, having the chance to play with bands
as Saxon, Motorhead, Queensryche, Angra and Whitesnake. Also this time Gianluca has been invited by
Rock TV with the band Mantra. In January 2004 Gianluca grounded his own Label, called Horus Music, distributed in Italy by Audioglobe; Horus Music releases the second Mantra album called "Hard Times"
and Gianlucas second work titled "Back Home":
in this record are present important guest musicians
as Patrick Rondat. Besides Gianluca is the first
italian guitar player with a fantastic 3D animation videoclip.
In March 2005 Mantra is the opening act for the Italian tour for the swedish band Europe. With Mantra released on November 2006 the third album titled "Hate Box". Just in these days Gianluca is finishing the third instrumental record with the following guest musicians: Ricardo Confessori (Shaaman-Angra) drums; Tony Franklin (Whitesnake, Blue Murder, The Firm) bass; plus as special guests: Frank Gambale, Alex Masi and many more...The very last release is Mantra's third album titled "Hate Box" out in the last November 2006..The rock never dies!!
