Ty Tabor ( ; born September 17, 1961) is the lead guitarist, songwriter, and co-lead vocalist for the
progressive metal
Progressive metal (sometimes shortened to prog metal) is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified guitar-driven sound of the former with the more experimental, cerebral ...
band,
King's X
King's X is an American rock band that originated in 1979 in Springfield, Missouri. They were first called The Edge and later became Sneak Preview before settling on its current name in 1985. The band's current lineup has remained intact for ...
.
Tabor has a wide-ranging guitar style, from big guitar riffs to middling melodic passages. His use of volume swells and ambient passages add an elemental texture to his compositions. He names his main influences as
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developm ...
,
Allan Holdsworth
Allan Holdsworth (6 August 1946 – 15 April 2017) was a British jazz fusion and progressive rock guitarist and composer.
Holdsworth was known for his esoteric and idiosyncratic usage of advanced music theory concepts, especially with respe ...
,
Johnny Winter
John Dawson Winter III (February 23, 1944 – July 16, 2014) was an American singer and guitarist. Winter was known for his high-energy blues rock albums and live performances in the late 1960s and 1970s. He also produced three Grammy Award-win ...
,
Ace Frehley
Paul Daniel "Ace" Frehley (; born April 27, 1951) is an American musician, best known as the original lead guitarist and co-founding member of the hard rock band Kiss. He invented the persona of The Spaceman (a.k.a. Space Ace) and played wi ...
,
Mel Galley,
Brian May
Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and astrophysicist, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Freddie Mercury an ...
,
Alex Lifeson
Aleksandar Živojinović, (born 27 August 1953), known professionally as Alex Lifeson (), is a Canadian musician, best known as the guitarist and backing vocalist of the progressive rock band Rush. In 1968, Lifeson co-founded the band that wo ...
,
Phil Keaggy
Philip Tyler Keaggy (born March 23, 1951) is an American acoustic and electric guitarist and vocalist who has released more than 55 albums and contributed to many more recordings in both the contemporary Christian music and mainstream markets. H ...
, and the original
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guilloti ...
band.
In 2008, Tabor was added to the guitar show "Chop Shop's" list of "Top 100 Most Complete Guitar Players of All Time" at number 84.
History
Ty Tabor was born in
Pearl, Mississippi
Pearl is a city in Rankin County, Mississippi, United States, located on the east side of the Pearl River across from the state capital Jackson. The population was 25,092 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area ...
and began singing and playing guitar at a young age, and by his early teens was performing with his father (an accomplished bluegrass musician) and his brother in a bluegrass band in and around his native Jackson. The band would play various festivals and shows, sharing the bill with bluegrass legends like
Lester Flatt
Lester Raymond Flatt (June 19, 1914 – May 11, 1979) was an American bluegrass guitarist and mandolinist, best known for his collaboration with banjo picker Earl Scruggs in the duo Flatt and Scruggs.
Flatt's career spanned multiple decades ...
and
Grandpa Jones. Tabor had also been taken over by the rock and roll sounds of the 1960s and '70s (most notably, The Beatles and Alice Cooper) and began playing in rock bands in his teen years. One of these was a Christian rock outfit called ''Matthew''. Upon graduating from high school, Tabor began touring with Matthew throughout the south. Times were tough on that tour with the band often setting up and performing in the parking lots of restaurants in exchange for food.
He left Matthew and decided to move to
Springfield, MO. to attend
Evangel College where he quickly entrenched himself in the local music scene. One group he played with got the chance to open up for guitarist
Phil Keaggy
Philip Tyler Keaggy (born March 23, 1951) is an American acoustic and electric guitarist and vocalist who has released more than 55 albums and contributed to many more recordings in both the contemporary Christian music and mainstream markets. H ...
. However, right before the show, the drummer for Tabor's band quit. Instead of cancelling and missing out on the big opportunity, Tabor volunteered to play drums for the show. Not having his own drum kit however, forced Tabor to ask Keaggy's drummer if he could use his. The drummer, who happened to be
Jerry Gaskill
Jerry Wayne Gaskill (born December 27, 1957) is an American rock musician who is the drummer for King's X.
History
Gaskill has been interested in making music and playing drums for as long as he can remember. His father bought him his first ...
, agreed and the show took place.
Tabor and Gaskill again crossed paths during some demo recording sessions with the ''Tracy Zinn Band''. The two became friends and were involved off and on with other musical projects together.
In spring of 1980, Tabor was asked to perform at a talent show at Evangel with a female singer. In the audience was
Doug Pinnick
Douglas Theodore Pinnick (born September 3, 1950), sometimes stylized as dUg Pinnick or simply dUg, is an American musician best known as the bass guitarist, co-lead vocalist, and songwriter for the hard rock and progressive metal band King's ...
, who was impressed by Tabor's performance. Pinnick eventually got in touch with Tabor and the two began collaborating musically.
Eventually Tabor, Pinnick, Gaskill, and guitarist Dan McCollam formed their own band called ''The Edge'' which, over time, evolved into
King's X
King's X is an American rock band that originated in 1979 in Springfield, Missouri. They were first called The Edge and later became Sneak Preview before settling on its current name in 1985. The band's current lineup has remained intact for ...
. Tabor is the youngest member of King's X, with Pinnick being eleven years his senior, and Gaskill three-and-a-half years older than him.
Since then, Tabor has become one of the more acclaimed and respected guitarists in music today. His playing style and guitar tone, as well as his vocals and songwriting, are crucial elements in the "King's X sound".
Tabor also opened his own recording and mastering facility in Katy, Texas. called Alien Beans Studios. He has mastered numerous album projects as well as produced albums by
Rez Band,
Jerry Gaskill
Jerry Wayne Gaskill (born December 27, 1957) is an American rock musician who is the drummer for King's X.
History
Gaskill has been interested in making music and playing drums for as long as he can remember. His father bought him his first ...
's solo album, ''
Come Somewhere
''Come Somewhere'' is the debut solo album by King's X drummer Jerry Gaskill. Gaskill wrote all of the material himself, with the exception of "Johnny's Song", which was co-written with Herb Gaskill. Jerry performed all of the vocals, most of t ...
'', and many others. Tabor has since relocated and moved Alien Beans Studios to Kansas City.
Other bands and collaborations
Solo works

After writing and performing almost exclusively for
King's X
King's X is an American rock band that originated in 1979 in Springfield, Missouri. They were first called The Edge and later became Sneak Preview before settling on its current name in 1985. The band's current lineup has remained intact for ...
for over 15 years, Tabor's first solo album, ''Naomi's Solar Pumpkin'', was released independently in 1997. Most of the songs from that debut appeared (re-recorded) on his following 1998 album, ''Moonflower Lane''. It was released on
Metal Blade Records
Metal Blade Records is an American independent record label founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The US office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distr ...
with much wider distribution as well as a few new tracks, and also featured drummer Alan Doss on the entire album.
Tabor's next release was 2002's ''
Safety
Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk.
Meanings
There are two slightly di ...
'', a much more introspective album that reflected on his then-recent divorce. Subsequent Tabor solo albums are ''
Rock Garden
A rock garden, also known as a rockery and formerly as a rockwork, is a garden, or more often a part of a garden, with a landscaping framework of rocks, stones, and gravel, with planting appropriate to this setting. Usually these are small ...
'' (2006), ''Balance'' (2008), ''Something's Coming'' (2010), ''Nobody Wins When Nobody Plays'' (2013) and ''Shades'' (2022).
Other bands
Tabor has also been a member of several other bands. He played guitar and sang in
Platypus
The platypus (''Ornithorhynchus anatinus''), sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative or monot ...
featuring
Rod Morgenstein
Rod Morgenstein (born April 19, 1953) is an American drummer and music educator. He is best known for his work with the rock bands Winger and Dixie Dregs.
He also played with Fiona, Platypus, the Steve Morse Band, and Jelly Jam. He has al ...
(previously of the
Dixie Dregs
The Dixie Dregs is an American rock band from Augusta, Georgia. Formed in 1970, the band's performance consists entirely of instrumentals that fuse elements of diverse genres such as rock, classical music, country, jazz and bluegrass into an ...
and
Winger) on drums,
John Myung (of
Dream Theater
Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of the ...
) on bass, and keyboardist
Derek Sherinian
Derek Sherinian (born August 25, 1966) is an American keyboardist who has toured and recorded for Alice Cooper, Billy Idol, and Joe Bonamassa, among others. He was also a member of Dream Theater from 1994 to 1999, is the founder of Planet X an ...
(of
Planet X and formerly
Dream Theater
Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of the ...
). They released two albums.
The same group minus
Derek Sherinian
Derek Sherinian (born August 25, 1966) is an American keyboardist who has toured and recorded for Alice Cooper, Billy Idol, and Joe Bonamassa, among others. He was also a member of Dream Theater from 1994 to 1999, is the founder of Planet X an ...
continued on as
The Jelly Jam
The Jelly Jam is an American progressive rock trio super group, consisting of King's X member Ty Tabor on guitar and vocals, Winger and Dixie Dregs member Rod Morgenstein on drums, and Dream Theater member John Myung on bass guitar.
Their first ...
and currently have four full-length albums to their credit.
Ty played guitar solos on 2 tracks,
Ode To Pain
An ode (from grc, ᾠδή, ōdḗ) is a type of lyric poetry. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three majo ...
and
Goodbye 25
Goodbye, Good bye, or Good-bye is a parting phrase and may refer to:
Film
* ''Goodbye'' (1918 film), a British drama directed by Maurice Elvey
* ''Goodbye'' (1995 film) (''Tot Ziens!''), a Dutch film directed by Heddy Honigmann
* ''Goodbye'' ...
, with Dallas/Houston friends,
Mind Body Soul
The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various ...
, on their self-titled 4 song EP in 1998, which Ty also mixed and mastered.
Tabor was also involved with the band Jughead featuring two-time
David Lee Roth band member
Gregg Bissonette
Gregg Bissonette (born June 9, 1959) is an American jazz and rock drummer and vocalist. He is the brother of bassist Matt Bissonette, with whom he frequently collaborates. He has played on albums by dozens of recording artists, including David ...
(drums),
Derek Sherinian
Derek Sherinian (born August 25, 1966) is an American keyboardist who has toured and recorded for Alice Cooper, Billy Idol, and Joe Bonamassa, among others. He was also a member of Dream Theater from 1994 to 1999, is the founder of Planet X an ...
(keyboards), and
Matt Bissonette (lead vocals, bass). Jughead's self-titled LP was released in 2002 on
InsideOut Music
Inside Out Music is a German independent record label originally based in Kleve, North Rhine-Westphalia, and dedicated to the publication of progressive rock, progressive metal and related styles. In 2009, it formed a partnership with Century Med ...
.
Tabor has guest appearances on several albums including two different
Carmine Appice ''Guitar Zeus'' albums,
Loudness
In acoustics, loudness is the subjective perception of sound pressure. More formally, it is defined as, "That attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which sounds can be ordered on a scale extending from quiet to loud". The relation of phys ...
drummer
Munetaka Higuchi's ''Free World'' album, and
Gregg Bissonette
Gregg Bissonette (born June 9, 1959) is an American jazz and rock drummer and vocalist. He is the brother of bassist Matt Bissonette, with whom he frequently collaborates. He has played on albums by dozens of recording artists, including David ...
's self-titled solo record.
He also played electric guitar and bass on King's X bandmate
Jerry Gaskill
Jerry Wayne Gaskill (born December 27, 1957) is an American rock musician who is the drummer for King's X.
History
Gaskill has been interested in making music and playing drums for as long as he can remember. His father bought him his first ...
's solo album ''
Come Somewhere
''Come Somewhere'' is the debut solo album by King's X drummer Jerry Gaskill. Gaskill wrote all of the material himself, with the exception of "Johnny's Song", which was co-written with Herb Gaskill. Jerry performed all of the vocals, most of t ...
''.
He currently has an ambient / electronica style project with
Wally Farkas called ''Xenuphobe''. They have 2 albums that were released through Molken Music.
Tabor also sang one of the human roles on
Ayreon's recent release,
01011001. He played the character "Ty" in the first interlude, ''Connect the Dots''.
Tabor, along with King's X bandmate Doug Pinnick and former
Galactic Cowboys members Wally Farkas and Alan Doss, have a new band called ''The Jibbs'' who have a single song available for download to benefit relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.
Equipment
Early in his career with King's X, Tabor's guitar sound was considered one of the most sought-after in rock. He played an unusual model of
Fender Stratocaster
The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuous ...
called the "
Elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. ...
", a short-lived guitar with an on-board active mid-boost circuit that was only in production in the U.S.A. in 1983 and 1984. The remainder of his gear was more of a mystery; he would switch the logos on his amplifiers to keep his tone a secret. He later abandoned this clandestine approach, and revealed in an interview in the May 1996 issue of
Guitar Player
''Guitar Player'' is an American popular magazine for guitarists, founded in 1967 in San Jose, California
San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political ...
magazine that he had used a solid-state
Gibson Lab Series L5 amplifier along with the
Strat Elite guitar to record the first four King's X albums. By the time of the interview, however, he had changed his equipment completely, the main pieces of his gear being a rack-mounted
Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier and the preamp of his Elite Stratocaster that was converted into a rack-mounted preamp (this allowed him to emulate the sound of his Elite Stratocaster, regardless of what guitar he used), which was his setup during the ''
Dogman'' era, and would continue into the 1990s and early 2000s.
Tabor endorsed
Zion Guitars
Zion ( he, צִיּוֹן ''Ṣīyyōn'', LXX , also variously transliterated ''Sion'', ''Tzion'', ''Tsion'', ''Tsiyyon'') is a placename in the Hebrew Bible used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole (see ...
, around the time of the recording of ''Dogman''. Phil Keaggy played Zion Guitars earlier. The Zion Ty Tabor Model was a Strat style guitar, with a basswood body and a maple cap. It featured
Joe Barden
Joe or JOE may refer to:
Arts
Film and television
* ''Joe'' (1970 film), starring Peter Boyle
* ''Joe'' (2013 film), starring Nicolas Cage
* ''Joe'' (TV series), a British TV series airing from 1966 to 1971
* ''Joe'', a 2002 Canadian animated ...
Pickups, a 3 button pickup selector with no tone control. It came only in candy apple red. The neck was maple with a rosewood fingerboard. It featured a relatively new machine head at the time, a gold accented locking model made by
Sperzel. Tabor personally signed each guitar. In recent years, Tabor has endorsed
Mesa Boogie
Mesa/Boogie (also known as Mesa Engineering) is an American company in Petaluma, California, that manufactures amplifiers and other accessories for guitars and basses. It has been in operation since 1969.
Mesa was started by Randall Smith as a s ...
,
Line 6, and Randall amplifiers, as well as Yamaha guitars, including the AES series and his now discontinued signature RGX-TT model. The RGX-TT was an unusual guitar in that it featured a basswood body with a maple center section. On this guitar Tabor used pickups by
Seymour Duncan
Seymour Duncan is an American company best known for manufacturing guitar and bass pickups. They also manufacture effects pedals which are designed and assembled in America. Guitarist and luthier Seymour W. Duncan and Cathy Carter Duncan founde ...
, in the H-S-S fashion. The bridge humbucker could be switched to single coil mode with a push switch. On the "Go Tell Somebody" tour with King's X, Tabor is using the M4 preamp from
Egnater
Egnater is an American company that manufactures boutique guitar amplifiers.
History
The company was founded by Bruce Egnater in Detroit, Michigan. After attending the University of Detroit Engineering School, he opened a guitar and amplifier re ...
and
Dean Soltero guitars. In 2008 and through mid-2009 Ty toured with two black Frank Lamara designed/Gene Baker built signature model guitars, with pickup (Motor City Pickups) covers showing an X on one and a V on the other. These symbolized the name of the album King's X were supporting at the time. In 2009, Ty began working with luthier John Guilford to create the Ty Tabor model of Guilford guitars. The Ty Tabor model features a mahogany body, maple neck (inlaid with the stylized X at the 12th fret) and maple fretboard, and two Seymour Duncan P-Rails pickups. The combination allows for tones ranging from traditional single-coil to dual humbucker to P90. Ty has used these guitars extensively on tour in support of XV.
Discography
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tabor, Ty
1961 births
Living people
People from Pearl, Mississippi
People from Katy, Texas
American heavy metal guitarists
Lead guitarists
Progressive metal guitarists
Progressive rock guitarists
King's X members
20th-century American guitarists
The Jelly Jam members
Inside Out Music artists
Metal Blade Records artists