Birthday:
16th May 1980

Location:
Sliema, Malta (Europe)

Musical background:
Mario grew up in a musical atmosphere since his mother is a pianist and she always made her effort to pass on her talent to him. As a young boy, he was always fascinated with guitars, aesthetically and musically. At the age of 11, Mario became a great fan of Queen, Brian May being his idol. Later on, at the age of 15 he showed a great interest in Iron Maiden through his eldest brother who gave him all his Iron Maiden albums. Since then, he felt a great urge to learn the guitar.

In March 1997, Mario started folk guitar lessons under the direction of Mark Ciantar. After a while, a great friend of his Mario Portelli, taught him some guitar rhythm techniques. From that time onwards, Mario took the guitar seriously and he practiced every day. In November 1997 he started playing the guitar in a youth mass and this went on for about 5 years. Furthermore, from 1998 till 2002, Mario used to give folk and classical guitar lessons to youngsters.

His first live performance on stage was in September 1998 at the Sliema Band’s Club as part of a band which was set up temporarily for this musical festival. In 1999, Mario formed his first official rock band named ‘Bricks’ who used to play cover versions of famous bands such as ‘Cramberries’, ‘Joan Osborne’, ‘REM’, ‘The Calling’, ‘Queen’ and others. They played live for 2 consecutive years. Furthermore, he went live with a variety of musicians from the local musical scene as a session guitar player.

Meanwhile, in May 1999, Mario founded a metal band named ‘Nocturnal Epitaph’. The style was ‘Doom Gothic’ and they composed various tracks with the intention to go live. However, the band split up due to various personal reasons.

In the beginning of 2001, he met Carlo at their place of work and they used to spend their break time speaking about song writing and the art of recording engineering. In June they met for some jamming sessions. Their styles blended very well and they decided to bring together all their musical inspirations.

Mario has also composed various songs which were recorded and mixed at his personal home studio.

Main Instrument:
Classical and rythm/lead guitars

Equipment:
LTD MH-100 guitar equipped with EMG-81 (bridge) and EMG-85 (neck) active humbucker pickups, Zoom GFX-8 guitar effects processor and Laney LV300 Twin Amplifier.

First album bought:
Metallica (Metallica)

Favourite albums:
Metallica (Metallica)
Toxicity (System of a Down)
Division Bell (Pink Floyd)
Wasted Years (Iron Maiden)
Keeper of the Seven Keys II (Helloween)
One Second (Paradise Lost)
The Heart of Everything (Within Temptation)
Greatest Hits II (Queen).

Favourite musicians:
Brian May
Kirk Hammet
Janic Gers
David Gilmour
Tony Iommi.

Other interests:
Composing music, RC aircrafts, full-scale aircrafts, fishing, football, cycling and others.