Metal Storm logo
Christian Muenzner - Biography


Biography

Christian Muenzner started playing guitar at the age of 11, first inspired by bands such as Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Metallica and Megadeth in the early 90′s. He taught himself the basics of guitar playing by learning songs of those bands and playing along to their records. He started playing his first live shows only one year later at the age of 12. Around the same time he started taking guitar lessons, where his first guitar teacher introduced him to bands and players like Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Dream Theater/John Petrucci and Paul Gilbert. His life changed after attending a Paul Gilbert clinic in 1995, after which Christian started practicing 6-8 hours a day for a while, working with instructional video tapes of players like Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, George Lynch, Richie Kotzen, Greg Howe, Steve Lynch, Michael Romeo, John Petrucci and Marty Friedman. This was the era in which Christian built the foundation for his technique. In 1997 Christian attended a 4 day Vinnie Moore guitar clinic. From the mid to the late 90′s Christian played in several local bands, until he joined the band Defeated Sanity in 1999, with whom he did his first professional recordings.

In 2001 he attended the Munich Guitar Institute (MGI), where he studied with great players like Wolfgang Zenk (ex-Sieges Even, 7for4) and Uli Wiedenhorn and got schooled in subjects such as ear training, harmony and theory, sight reading, improvisation etc. In that time he also studied music styles such as Blues, BeBop, Fusion and Funk. Christian graduated the MGI in 2002.

In that same year, he joined the band Necrophagist, with whom he played between 2002 and 2006, appearing on their 2004 album Epitaph, to which he contributed 50% of the guitar solos as well as writing some of the bass lines and a few riffs to one song. After having played around 50 live shows with Necrophagist, he left the band in early 2006 due to personal reasons.

Between 2006 and 2008 Christian played with the German heavy metal outfit Majesty (which was later re-named to Metalforce for a while), with whom he played several shows all across Europe and supported the band Manowar at the Magic Circle Festival in 2007 and 2008, playing in front of more than 22.000 people (in 2007), which marks Christian's biggest show up to date. Two songs from the 2008 MCF show can be seen on the Manowar DVD Magic Circle Festival Vol. 2.

In early 2008 Christian joined the progressive death metal band Obscura, with whom he recorded the albums Cosmogenesis (2009) and Omnivium (2011) and played more than 190 live shows throughout Europe, the USA, Japan and South East Asia. Between 2009 and 2011 Obscura toured with bands such as Cannibal Corpse, Atheist, The Black Dahlia Murder, Nile, Hate Eternal, Devin Townsend and Children Of Bodom to name a few. In late 2011 Obscura played their first headlining tour in North America, followed by a succesful European headlining run in spring 2012.

In April 2011 Christian released his first all instrumental solo album Timewarp, which he describes as "80′s Shrapnel Records Shred meets modern metal". The album features Hannes Grossmann (Obscura, Blotted Science, ex-Necrophagist) on drums, Steve DiGiorgio (Sadus, Death, Control Denied, Artension, Sebastian Bach, ex-Iced Earth, ex-Testament etc) and Jacob Schmidt (Defeated Sanity) on bass, Daniel Galmarini (Mercury Falling) on keyboards, as well as guest appearances by Bob Katsionis (Firewind), Ryan Knight (ex0Arsis, The Black Dahlia Murder), Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry), Derek Taylor (Eniac Requiem, Crimeny, Shrapnel solo artist) and Alex Guth (Stormwarrior, Born Again). While definitely being rooted in Christians 80′s and 90′s neoclassical and metal influences, the album also contains elements of jazz and fusion music and showcases sides of his playing not heard on any of his previous recordings. Timewarp went to be the 2nd best selling instrumental guitar album on Guitar 9 Records for the year 2011.

In 2009 Christian also joined the Swedish band Spawn Of Possession, for which he recorded all the solos for the new album Incurso (2012).

Christian is also a member of Ron Jarzombek's musical venture Terrestrial Exiled, along with Obcura drummer Hannes Grossmann and Spastic Ink/Riot bassist Pete Perez. So far Terrestrial Exiled have released only one song called "Duodecimal Levorotation".

In April 2012 Christian joined the classic German thrash metal band Paradox, whose new album Tales Of The Weird will be released worldwide via AFM Records on December 14, 2012.

Aside from the mentioned recordings, Christian did a lot of guest guitar solos for bands such as Gorod, Deadborn, A Loathing Requiem, Ravenblack and R.I.P. He also played live session guitar for the band Nightrage for 14 shows in 2006, where he stepped in for guitar hero Gus G (Firewind, Ozzy Osbourne), and for Stormwarrior in 2008.

Christian is endorsed by Ibanez Guitars, ENGL Amplification, TC Electronics and D'Addario Strings.

Source: Official site