Nick Layton is a professional guitarist, composer and teacher living in Washington State. He has worked in a variety of professional music settings including teaching private and group lessons, as well as having been the Music Coordinator at Chorus church in Southern California. Nick’s debut CD Storming the Castle was released in July 2008. It is a mix of ten highly melodic tracks ranging from epic metal to emotional ballads, featuring virtuoso guitar playing. A review from the Shred Academy is here: http://shredacademy.blogspot.com/2008/07/album-review-nick-layton-storming.html Layton has also released two major instructional courses. The first is entitled Phrasing Concepts for Rock Lead Guitar Soloing-- a powerful new instructional course for guitarists who want to learn highly effective soloing concepts to help better express themselves. http://www.tomhess.net/PhrasingConcepts.aspx The second in entitled Innovative Arpeggio Phrasing for Advancing Metal Players. http://www.tomhess.net/ArpeggioPhrasing.aspx In addition, Nick has co-authored the E-Book The Next Step: Serious Improvement for the Developing Guitarist. This book is for guitarists who want to learn to play better, faster, technically more efficient, and much more. http://www.thenextstepguitar.com/ Inspired by the great artists and virtuoso guitarists of the late 70’s and 80’s, including Yngwie Malmsteen, Vinnie Moore, George Lynch , Michael Schenker, John Sykes, Dio, Queensryche, Savatage, TNT, Dream Theater, and many others, Nick became obsessed with the guitar in 1987 and never looked back. Presently, Nick is involved in many musical projects including composition and recording, live band projects, writing instructional materials for guitarists and teaching private lessons. Nick teaches locally in the Vancouver, WA/Portland, OR area. Layton’s musical education includes advanced studies with virtuoso Tom Hess in his Music Careers Mentoring program (MCMP) as well as private studies with recording artists/virtuosos James Byrd, Slav Simanic and Howard Hart. Nick graduated from George Fox University in 1998.