Artist Bio

Since the early 90's as a recording artist, Ron Thal (aka "Bumblefoot") has released 7 CDs, a live DVD, plus numerous appearances on comp CDs and as a guest performer on other albums. Ron has been on the cover of a few guitar mags over the last 10 years, has done international headlining tours and festivals, and has been his own songwriter, band, studio, engineer, producer, manager, record label, promoter, publisher, publicist, booking agent, accountant... all of it.  Bumblefoot is writing and recording a new album, hopefully finished by early 2008.

As a member of Guns N' Roses, Ron has been touring since May 2006, playing sold-out shows in 27 countries, headlining festivals with crowds of 150,000.  He recently laid guitar tracks on the upcoming "Chinese Democracy" album.

Bumblefoot has worked as a songwriter for other artists, for TV jingles, theme songs and background music.  He has also written for classical instruments and orchestras and has been hired by bands/labels for the past 20 years as a producer. This has included writing, arranging and performing, usually engineering.  As a songwriter and producer, Bumblefoot has experience in pop, R&B, hip-hop, funk, disco, electronic, classical, opera, blues, folk, jazz, swing, Latin, Middle-Eastern, new-age, lounge, rock, progressive, industrial, metal, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's retro.  His producing credits include 24-7 Spyz's "Face The Day" CD, and Return To Earth's "Captains of Industry" (ft. Chris Pennie - drummer of Coheed and Cambria, ex-Dillinger Escape Plan), and a rock re-mix of Hurricane's "Abaybay" (release TBD).

Bumblefoot has been hired by Carlin Publishing to write songs for their music library, acting as his own publisher, pushing songs from his albums, and writing music specifically as theme songs and background music. He's written the theme song to the SpikeTV show "MXC", done all the music for a SEGA video game, did a jingle for the Oxygen Network, and in the past year his music has been heard on MTV/VH1's Hogan Knows Best, The Real World, Pimp My Ride, The Osbournes, Made, Date My Mom, Road Rules, Extreme Elimination, You've Got A Friend, Clone High USA, Sausage Factory, Power Girls, and plenty more.

Bumblefoot has his own recording studio in NJ, where he records his own music and other artists I'm working with. He's also rented it out and acted solely as an engineer, doing all or any part of the recording process - recording the tracks, mixing the songs, and mastering the album. I've been hired solely as a mastering engineer, and as a mixing engineer. The studio has also been rented out as a photo studio, to shoot music videos, webcasts and TV shows.

Ron has also worked as a hired guitarist, bassist and singer for recordings and live performances.  Have been a guest on stage with Joe Satriani (PNC Bank Arts Center, NJ), with Nancy Sinatra and Cyndi Lauper (Crobar, NYC), Turkish composer Fahir Atakoglu (Lisner Auditorium, Washington DC), and has laid guitar tracks for Jessica Simpson ("Irresistible" dance mix), and for the music of CNN Turkey (All music - station IDs, program titles, main theme of the station - 1999).

Ron started studying music at age 7, began teaching music at age 13, giving private guitar, bass, vocal and music theory instruction. By 19, he started teaching at local music stores and schools in NYC and NJ. In his early 20's, he set up and ran the music department at a private school in NJ, including music for children, music history, music theory, gospel choir, jazz band, and instrument lessons (he also set up a darkroom and taught photography and film developing.) Since 2003, Ron has been a Professor at SUNY Purchase, teaching music production.

Bumblefoot has taken the teaching on the road as well. Between shows while touring, he's arranged clinics and master-classes at schools and venues, and has also done international clinic tours over the past 10 years, plus lots of articles and videos for websites and major guitar magazines in the US, Europe, and Japan. He's been a guest instructor/performer at schools and music camps - Raleigh Music Academy (NC), Tone Merchants (CA), National Guitar Workshop (FL), Freak Guitar Camp (Sweden), MusicFest (Russia), and a music coach on MTV's "Made."