Stef Burns Portrait

Who is it?.... - some of you ma yask now. And that's why I wanna introduce you to a musician, who definately belongs to the so called upper class guitarists. In his biography you'll find the Creme 'de 'la Creme of artists, he has worked with over all these years. He played with Alice Cooper and with Y&T. Yes and in earlier times he was with the melodic rock legend Pablo Cruise and funk drum goddess Sheila E. Stef Burns shared the stage with Michael Bolton and also with Prince and toured around the globe. For the past years he is also a member of the Vasco Rossi Band (italien Rockstar-legend No.1) and he is also playing the leadguitar in Huey Lewis & The News band All these artists are just a few of the many he'd been playing almost all of his life and where his name is shown in the credits of the CD inlays. He's done a solo CD as well in the year 2000-. And there we are - Beeing already 50 years of age, he still doesn't belong to the famous legue of super guitarists. But you can easily count him to one of the best musicians in his genre. That's for sure.

Born and raise on the american Westcoast, Stef founded his first band already aged 9.
He went through various periods and station and tried to complete his personal developement.
.In 1983 he had his first big appearance with Pablo Cruise He also recorded the album "Out Of Our Hands" followed by a stint with Sheila E. where he also changed his look dratically. Stef earned a huge potentiol of funk in these times. Michael Bolton offered Burns his next job 1988 after he had toured with the group "Berlin" for two years.
The list of artists became longer and longer. And as I mentioned before, he did his thing with Alice Cooper

Stef Burns (far left) with Y&T Spain Tour 2000

and still partly does it with Y&T, Huey Lewis and Vasco Rossi He says: Italy has become something like my second home. I'm there at least twice a year. And when Vasco needs me for a tour, it can easily become six months as well. I love the italien mentality. And because I did learn the language as well, I feel kinda very much connected to this country." His only solo album, he did so far is named "Swamp Tea", and the cover shows his two sons and is dedicated to them. It was released not only in America and Japan, but also via an italien label in italy. "This was a record, I always wanted to do, but I had to postbone it for so many years, because I had so many other sings to do as a tour guitarist. Some of the tracks on this album are very old. I wrote them back in 1990 and 91. But on this songs on Swamp Tea I can notify myself best, how much my musical developement has changed over all these years. Songs like "Walking The Penguins" and "Echo Lake" are energetic and emotional tracks. All in all the complete CD is a very melody orientated piece of music, almost a bit poppy.- "I do like this line between twist and Jazz influences.And I really hope, that moe people do like it and not only insiders." Stef Burns is leaning on Hendrix and Gilmore a bit, but still following his own individual style. Playing live, he understands to convince the audiance, that's for sure. Did he ever think about moving to italy for good? "No, not really. California is still my home. The fans over here in Europa are more loyal and you can honestly feel this as an artist, even when you're away for a while.