Mario Parga

Who is Mario Parga?

Guitarist Mario Parga, born in Lytham, Lancashire, England on 7 August 1969, came into the spotlight during the late 1980s when he began appearing in numerous guitar and rock magazines such as Guitar Player, Metal Hammer, Kerrang, Metal Forces and played a live guitar solo on MTV's 'Metal Hammer' show.

During the early 1990s Parga toured, played and recorded with numerous artists, most notably Cozy Powell and Graham Bonnet. In 1991, his debut guitar instrumental album The Magician was released by President Records. Following disillusionment with the music industry, Parga shied away from the scene until he re-emerged in Los Angeles in 1998, playing guitar on Graham Bonnet's The Day I Went Mad.

Considered by many to be one of the greatest sweep arpeggio players of the guitar 'shred' and neoclassical metal genres, Parga combines complex arpeggio patterns with rapid alternate picking, Sweep-picking and string bending. Mario was listed in the July '08 edition of the international magazine Guitar World as being one of the World's 50 fastest guitarists based on a scientific note clocking experiment. Despite his amazing speed, he is also renowned for his highly emotive slower playing.