Gary Pihl
Raised in the suburbs of Chicago for the first 12 years of his life, Gary Pihl relocated to the San Francisco Bay area and has led a musical life ever since. He explains, "I was in several bands in high school. One of our guitar players told me about a guy who was really good and giving guitar lessons at the local music store. He was in a band named The Warlocks. We went to see them play at a local pizza parlor. A couple months later they changed their name to the Grateful Dead. The guitarist giving us lessons was Jerry Garcia." At 19, Gary had his recording debut with Day Blindness in 1969. He says, "After my time in Day Blindness, I was in a band called Fox with Roy Garcia and Johnny V (Vernazza), who went on to play in Elvin Bishop's band. We were really fortunate to get to be on some shows with bands we looked up to including opening at the Fillmore for Free (with Paul Rogers). We were on shows with Janis Joplin, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Eric Burdon and War and Mose Allison."
Gary spent four years in a band called Crossfire. He recalls, "Mitchell Froom was our organist. He's gone on to be a great producer (Paul McCartney, The Pretenders, Los Lobos, Crowded House, Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, etc.). We were opening some shows for Norman Greenbaum (Spirit in the Sky) when he was performing as a singer/songwriter on acoustic guitar. We had done our set and left the stage to Norman. He was halfway through his set when we noticed the audience was getting restless and wanted him to rock out. In the middle of one of Norman's songs, our drummer, Steve Jones, got back on stage and started playing! Norman turned around in shock. Then he looked at the rest of us on the side of the stage and waved us up. We'd seen him about a half dozen times so we sort of knew his songs. Mitchell and his brother David (our pianist) have perfect pitch and were telling me and our bassist what the chords were as we went along. The crowd seemed to dig it and we ended the show with a rocked out version of Spirit in the Sky."
Pihl's first big break in came in 1977, when he joined Sammy Hagar's band, where he toured and recorded for 8 years. Gary met Tom Scholz when Hagar was opening for BOSTON between '77 and '79. In 1985, Sammy joined Van Halen, however, Pihl didn't miss a beat. He explains, "Tom called me up when he was working on the Third Stage album, he had one more song left to be recorded and asked me if I'd come out to work with him on it. I was thrilled! It was a dream come true for me to work with one of the greatest bands of all time! I would have crawled on my hands and knees from California to get to work with BOSTON. As it turned out, I flew directly from Farm Aid (my last gig with Hagar) to Boston, so I wasn't out of work for a day. I thought, how lucky could a guy get? He told me that there would probably be some touring involved if the album did well, which it did and basically I'm still here." Tom and Gary traded studio leads on "I Think I Like It," a high-energy power tune that showcases how well these two virtuosos complement one another. The two of them, who could pass for brothers, are a natural pair on stage. In addition to lead guitar, Gary also plays electric and acoustic 12-string guitar, keyboards, as well as lends backing and harmony vocals.
Since the early 1990s, Gary has included his work with Alliance in his free time, and he just lets his creative energy fly.
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