Michael Romeo

Michael Romeo is a beast. The Symphony X guitarist can tear through a solo, but put on “Of Sins and Shadows” and pay attention to the rhythm guitar. Those riffs are a workout before he even gets to the lead. The picking is tight, the accents hit hard, and the band can still give Russell Allen room to sing.

Romeo is a founding member and the band's principal songwriter. Symphony X came out of New Jersey in the early nineties, with his The Dark Chapter demo helping get the record labels interested. The band's own history covers those beginnings and the first album's Japanese release in 1994.

Learning the parts

Kiss got him interested in being in a band. He took early lessons from a fingerstyle and classical guitarist, then spent years working out other players' music. In a 2007 Guitar Messenger interview, he named Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Uli Jon Roth, Paul Gilbert and Yngwie Malmsteen among those he learned from.

He also worked on music written for other instruments. Some passages pushed him toward tapping because conventional picking wasn't practical. That gives a bit of context to those wide, flowing runs across the neck.

His Guitar World listening selections include Sabbath, Pantera, Priest and Rush alongside Rhoads and Malmsteen. There's plenty of heavy riff music in there.

The orchestra at home

Romeo studied orchestration with books and scores, following the written parts while listening. He told Guitar Messenger about moving from Bach and Beethoven toward Stravinsky, Holst and film composers such as Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams. He was programming the orchestral arrangements at home.

For the full-length version of that side of Symphony X, set aside about 24 minutes for “The Odyssey.” There are quieter passages, big vocal sections and a lot of guitar between the orchestral stretches. “Sea of Lies” is a much shorter way into the band if you want to get straight to the playing.

His solo record War of the Worlds, Pt. 1 takes the film-score interest further. The label's account describes the project as a mix of metal, orchestral writing and electronic sounds, recorded largely in his home studio in Hazlet, New Jersey. It features Rick Castellano singing, John DeServio on bass and John Macaluso on drums.

The white Caparison

Romeo played ESPs before working with Caparison. He described sending them a Kramer neck and a Fender neck as references for the feel he wanted.

The current Dellinger Prominence-MJR signature model has a maple-and-mahogany body, a five-piece maple-and-walnut neck, maple fingerboard, 24 super-jumbo frets and a Schaller locking tremolo. The pickups are a DiMarzio Tone Zone at the neck and an X2N at the bridge. White body, black hardware, one volume knob.

Put these on

• “Of Sins and Shadows”: start with the rhythm parts, then get to the solo.
• “Sea of Lies”: a compact dose of the guitar and keyboard interplay.
• “The Odyssey”: the long one. Give it the time.
• “Set the World on Fire (The Lie of Lies)”: a heavier starting point from Paradise Lost.

The official Symphony X site has more on the band, and Caparison's model page has the full guitar specifications.