Paul Sidoti first picked up a guitar at age 5, before he was even old enough to get his right hand fully around the neck. Enthralled early on with Kiss, Van Halen, the Beatles, the Eagles, AC/DC and many other greats, he quickly honed his craft, and he has parlayed his fleet-fingered talent into an increasingly versatile and in-demand sideman career.
Sidoti has played with the ’90s edition of Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Eric Carmen (and the reunited lineup of Carmen’s famous group, the Raspberries), Taylor Swift, country hit-maker Bryan White and others. For stage and studio alike, Sidoti relies on high-performance EVH gear, including a Wolfgang guitar model and a 5150III amp. Here, Sidoti elaborates on his early influences and describes how he gets such great tone: