Monte Pittman

Madonna’s long-time guitarist Monte Pittman released his debut album in 2009, the acoustic “The Deepest Dark” and his first full-band album, “Pain, Love & Destiny” in 2011. Now Monte Pittman returns with a three part EP set entitled “M.P.3: The Power Of Three.” He just released part one, which is entirely acoustic as he gets back to his roots in song-writing. The second part which will be a “metal” album and third part which will be a “blues” album will be released over the course of the next year.

The new album starts out with the dark acoustic sound of “Another Lesson I’ve Learned” as Monte brings up the ghost of Layne Stanley. The songs carry a very personal feeling as Monte pours his heart in each performance, especially the ballad “Tonight.” The EP closes with “Pictures Of You” which feels like a stripped-down version of a bigger production.

Monte Pittman is currently on tour in South America with Madonna. Watch for more solo dates to be announced soon as Madonna’s tour wraps up at the end of the month. For more information on Monte Pittman’s new music, please visit montepittman.com. - JP's Music Blog

Guitarist Monte Pittman has played in bands Citizen Vein and Prong. He was the guitarist and musicial director for Adam Lambert. He has been playing with Madonna for the last 10 years.

His first solo album, "The Deepest Dark", was released in November 2009. The album is a

mellow collection of acoustic work. In October 2011, Monte released his second album, "Pain,

Love & Destiny," which went to #1 Rock Album, #1 Pop Album, and #30 Overall Albums for

CDBaby, within its first week, and cracked the iTunes Top 200 chart.

Phillip Jarrell of Jarrell Guitars announced at the 2012 NAMM Show that the first live performance of the revolutionary new Monte Pittman Signature Jarrell MPS guitar during SBowl KLVI Halftime Show on Sunday, February 5th.

I spoke with Monte Pittman at the NAMM show after he discussed and unveil his new Jarrell Signature Guitar -- the MPS Series.


Monte Pittman
Click on the video to see what he had to say.

After the Superbowl, Pittman will perform at the Artists in Music Awards on February 10 where

he is nominated at the performing at The Whisky on February 11Mint

For more information on Monte, please visit: http://montepittman.com/

For more on Jarrell Signature Guitar- The MPS Series, please visit: http://jarrellguitars.com/ - LA Examiner

When Monte Pittman was 14 years old he had a dream that he was onstage playing guitar with Madonna. Pittman isn’t sure why he had this dream, since he was more of a Metallica/Anthrax/Slayer kid at the time. But the dream was so vivid that he remembers telling people about it. One of the people he told, eventually, was Madonna herself.

As a boy, Monte Pittman dreamed of playing guitar onstage with Madonna.

After starting out as her guitar teacher 12 years ago, Pittman has become a core member of Madonna’s band. When she brings her “MDNA” tour to the TD Garden on Tuesday it will be Pittman’s fifth live go-round as her lead guitarist.

“She’s the best boss you could ever ask for,” says Pittman on the phone from a Philadelphia tour stop. The Texas native has worked with Madonna since he was 24 and co-written several songs with her.

Not only, says Pittman, is she open to collaboration, but she also tells a good joke. He adds with a laugh, “but I’m not repeating any of them.”

Even more valuable, the boss supports her band members, says Pittman: “She’s selling my CD at her merch booth.”

Like many of Madonna’s band members, Pittman is also an artist in his own right and hopes to tour for his 2011 solo release, “Pain, Love & Destiny,” after the “MDNA” tour and get started on album number three, which he says will be “heavily influenced by classic Metallica and Pantera.”

On Tuesday, Pittman will be operating under the watchful eye of musical director/keyboardist Kevin Antunes, a New Bedford native who became Madonna’s right-hand man on her “Sticky & Sweet” tour.

Antunes, who designed the soundtrack for the recent “Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour by Cirque du Soleil,” says Madonna fans are in for some serious spectacle.

“It’s visually stunning,” says Antunes on the phone from a Paris tour stop. “The stage that we have, nothing has ever been built like this.”

Both musicians say to expect interesting re-arrangements of familiar tunes as well, on which they both had input. “It happens a bunch of different ways,” says Antunes of the live arrangements that find songs being mashed-up, medley-ized, stripped down, and reimagined. “But nothing happens with Madonna’s music without her blessing. It’s a nice little situation where I’m fortunate to be her copilot, just kind of riding along.”

A dream come true, for both musicians. - Boston Globe

Guitarist Alex Skolnick (TESTAMENT) and drummer Johnny Kelly (TYPE O NEGATIVE, DANZIG) joined Monte Pittman — who has recorded and toured with PRONG in addition to playing guitar for Madonna and "American Idol" finalist Adam Lambert — on stage last Friday, September 7 at The Living Room in New York City to perform Pittman's song "Burn Down The Garden". Video footage of the jam can be seen below.

Monte is credited with co-writing songs on PRONG's 2003 album, "Scorpio Rising", and co-writing/co-producing their 2007 CD, "Power Of The Damager", to which he also added backing vocals and bass.

In November 2009, Monte released his debut solo album, "The Deepest Dark", which featured 11 acoustic songs. His follow-up effort, "Pain, Love & Destiny", cracked iTunes' Top 200 its first week, making it the only album by an independent artist to have done so.

Monte is currently performing around the world on Madonna's 2012 MDNA world tour. - Blabbermouth.net

About a month ago, I received an email from a huge Madonna-loving metalhead I know up in Massachusetts, urging me to chat with guitarist Monte Pittman.

I had never heard of Pittman before, but was told he’s been Madonna’s guitarist for a dozen years now — which, admittedly, isn’t the most metal thing one could do.

Turns out Pittman’s a metal kid at heart, playing on the biggest pop tour with the world’s most famous pop icon. He’s even buds with Testament’s Alex Skolnick and claims to worship the ground Decapitated’s Vogg tramples upon.

But wait — Pittman, who also happens to be Madonna’s guitar teacher, has had something of a rather dichotomous career. Before playing for Madonna on five world tours, Pittman was the guitarist for Prong for several years.

No shit.

“It always seems odd to people for me to go from Prong to Madonna,” Pittman tells Gun Shy Assassin. “I look at Prong as not just another heavy metal band. They’re almost heavy dance music. But then again, I don’t look at Madonna as just another female pop star. When she plays guitar, you can hear all the things that were going on when she first moved to New York. You can hear that she used to go to CBGB and hear Patti Smith and the Ramones.”

Pittman pauses.

“What’s kind of funny, which is something I have never thought about before just now, is that there is one common denominator: CBGB,” he says. “She played her first gig there, and then that’s where Prong started. Tommy Victor was the sound guy there, and the rest of the guys worked there. It’s where both of them began.”

Pittman — who grew up in Texas listening to Metallica, Slayer, Morbid Angel, and Pantera — isn’t just a hired gun guitarist, but a solo artist in his own right. In fact, once Madonna’s current world tour wraps up, he’s off to Copenhagen to finish up his forthcoming third album with producer Flemming Rassmussen.

Yes, that Flemming Rassmussen.

“I’m just so excited,” says Pittman. “He’s my favorite producer ever. Ride The Lighting, Master of Puppets, …And Justice For All? That stuff changed my life.”

Pittman’s career started in Los Angeles, where he moved to from the Lone Star State after dissolving his band Myra Mains.

“I started playing with Prong within the first month of moving there,” Pittman recalls. “I had met Ivan de Prume from White Zombie who was jamming with Tommy at the time, and he hooked us up. I got to be there to kind of help get Prong going again.”

At that same time, he started teaching guitar lessons to make ends meet.

“I started teaching Madonna, and thought she’d take some lessons and that would be it. It had been seven years since her last tour. I was blown away by how cool she was, and was going over to her house three times a week. A month after her first lesson, she asked me to play David Letterman with her. That was life-changing.”

That led to invites from Madonna to be her guitarist on her upcoming world tour. He’s now on his fifth trek of the globe with the Material Girl.

“Usually, she tours a year, takes two to three years off, writes another album, and we do it all over again,” says Monte. “So I would go from Madonna to Prong and just back and forth. Then i wanted to start a band. I didn’t go out to L.A. to be a side-man, although it’s not a bad job at all.”

Pittman says he started a band with Tommy Victor of Prong and Adam Lambert; the group later disbanded when Lambert competed in a season of “American Idol.”

“We were very supported of Adam, and I played for him for a little while after the show,” says Pittman. But the desire in him to strike out as his own artist was ever nagging.

Two albums later, he’s planning to release his third LP in three parts over the next year. Once all three parts — an acoustic, a brutal metal, and a blues part — are released digitally, the three will be combined and issued as one physical release.

“The majority of he record is heavy; old school thrash, a la Testament and Anthrax,” says Pittman, adding there may be guests on the record.

“Some friends of mine have said, ‘Hit me up, I’d like to do something on the album,’” Pittman says. “The last song on the album is ten minutes, and I want to bring in various friends” for one big mega-collaborative track.

One of those friends might be Skolnick.

“He is definitely invited,” Pittman joked.

Skolnick recently jammed with Monte during his recent New York City acoustic show. Video of that performance can be found at the end of this interview.

The video also boast Johnny Kelly of Type O Negative on percussion, Kane Ritchotte of Portugal The man on drums and Max Whipple on bass.

Pittman is planning more shows for next year, and thinks he may be heading out for a headliner in February. But he says playing with Madonna is the ultimate gig for him.

“She is…I used to think that the dream gig would be playing guitar for Ozzy or being Metallica’s third guitarist, but this is the dream gig,” he says. “She’s just so cool to everybody and so good to me…I would never leave her for anybody.

As for his love of metal, Pittman says he’s a bg fan of Fear Factory, Six Feet Under, and thinks the new Meshuggah record was the proverbial shit.

“But look, as amazing as Vogg from Decapitated is, I also love Ray LaMontagne,” he says. “I like all of that music equally, and its all guitar music, really. To me, though, the new Testament album is the album of the year. Although, Koloss — how do you top that?”

When asked what folks could expect from the heavier side of his upcoming album, Pittman had trouble describing it.

“All I will say is one song sounds like a cross between Steve Vai, Mastodon, Baroness, and Gojira,” he says. “I didn’t purposely try to write a song like that, it just came out.” - Gun Shy Assassin

Guitar virtuoso Monte Pittman wears many hats. The Texas-born, Los Angeles based musician is best known as the guitarist for Madonna, AKA the Queen of Pop. But Pittman, 36, who has a diverse resume, having played guitar in metal band Prong as well as with pop star Adam Lambert’s band, is also an acclaimed artist in his own right. He is currently pulling double-duty, performing on Madonna’s MDNA world tour, as well as recording tracks for his upcoming 3rd solo album. Joining Pittman on the project is legendary Danish rock producer Flemming Rasmussen, best known for his collaborations with metal icons Metallica. Rasmussen is the mastermind behind such classic works as Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and And Justice for All. He won a Grammy for producing the group’s single, One (from And Justice for All) in 1989.

“Flemming Rasmussen is doing the third album. He’s always been my favourite producer,” Pittman explains. “I met him when we’d gone through Copenhagen on Madonna’s Sticky and Sweet Tour. He has his Sweet Silence Studios; that’s where he did all of his old, classic stuff. I looked him up and found his contact info, but he was on vacation. So we just kept in contact, and if I would go through Copenhagen to play, I would call him up. A lot of it started with a little bit here and there, and as the years go by, you just kinda get to know each other. I said, ‘it would be great to work with you someday.’ And he said ‘sure, absolutely.’”

Pittman approached Rasmussen about doing Pain, Love and Destiny (his second album, released in 2011. His first album is 2009’s The Deepest Dark). But the arrangement fell through. “He was gonna come to L.A., but then plans changed.” Pittman remained unfazed and got the mega-producer on board for his 3rd release. The guitarist had a unique vision about the sound he wanted for his latest venture, wanting it to resemble one of his live club performances.

“There’s different kinds of music,” he explains. “There are a few different things we are doing. There’s going to be acoustic songs; which are already done, that are already in mastering, and there’s going to be heavy songs. After I get off this tour (just before Christmas), I’m flying to Copenhagen and we’re recording the heavy ones. From there on, there’s also some blues songs we’re going to do. There’s three different styles, and the idea for me, is that’s what I need for my live show. That’s where it matters, that’s where it’s important: in my set. When this whole 3rd album is done, you’ve got the heavy stuff, the rock stuff…break it down the middle for a couple of acoustic songs. Got the jams at the end, and then the most popular songs, or maybe end with a cover (song) and you’ve got a dynamite set.”

The as yet untitled project is due for release in 2013. - RockStar Weekly

You know what they say: Those who can’t, teach. Well, Monte Pittman is living proof that adage is a bunch of bull. Not only will he be backing Madonna onstage at the MGM this weekend, he’s the one who taught the pop icon how to shred it up on the guitar.

While waiting to play a recent gig in Seattle, the Texas native took the time to chat about his famous students, how he landed the gig with Madge and more.

How did you land the Madonna gig?
I started giving her guitar lessons, and then from there she started taking it seriously and then she asked me to join her band and come on tour with her. I’ve been here ever since.

How did you end up teaching her how to play the guitar?
I had worked in a music store, I worked at the Guitar Center in Hollywood, and I quit and started teaching lessons, kind of to become my own boss. At the time I was living down in Redondo Beach in L.A., and then driving up to Hollywood and working, and then after that going up to Burbank and rehearsing … just doing that, that took up my whole day. And so I thought, “Well, what if I just start teaching guitar lessons?” which I had done back when I had lived in Texas. … Guy Ritchie was my third student, I think third student, and they were dating at the time. So I started teaching Guy and from there I started teaching her.

How did you land these crazy famous students?
Well, Guy’s assistant at the time, Nathan, he called the Guitar Center looking for guitar teachers, and that’s why I started teaching, because you never heard of any teachers. I never had when I worked there, there were only a few names that I had to give to people, and customers would come back saying, “Do you have anybody else I’d be more happy with?” So I was like, “Why don’t I do this?” … A lot of people would go to the Musician’s Institute … but Los Angeles is such a big city, you also want to find somebody close to where you are.

Was Madonna a good student?
Oh yes. I could tell that she had gone over everything that I had given her by the time of her next lesson, whether she had it down exactly or not. Teaching somebody like her … She’s already done more than what most people aspire to do, learning guitar and trying to make it or whatever. She just loved it and she had that musical sense about her already.

You began touring with her in 2001, correct?
Yeah, 2001 was the first tour with her. The first time I played with her was on David Letterman, which was 12 years ago now. But yeah, this is the fifth world tour. There’s been promo tours also.


Wow – David Letterman? That’s a pretty awesome first gig to have with the Queen of Pop.
Yeah, she asked me to come play Letterman with her; I thought she was joking with me. It was like a Monday when I found out and we filmed on a Thursday, so things changed rapidly. … I hadn’t even been teaching her a month before that happened.

Are you a studio musician for her as well?
I’ve played on a couple things. I played on some of Confessions on a Dance Floor and Hard Candy. I’ve written a couple of things here and there, I’ve co-written with her – it just depends. If there’s guitar needed, she’ll call me in; she has in the past. Sometimes producers have a group of musicians that they already work with, so she may get a track that already has guitar on it … so what’s the point of redoing it just to be me? It’s just a different situation with everybody you would work with. Yeah, I played on Confessions and Hard Candy, didn’t do anything on the MDNA album. I did some stuff for other people. I played on Sophie Ellis Bexter’s album, Mel C from Spice Girls, a couple of things. I don’t even remember anymore (laughs).

You’re on the road right now. What are you currently up to?
We’re in Seattle, we play tonight and tomorrow night. I did a solo show last night here, and I’ve been doing those when I can. At first I didn’t know if I was going to have time to do them. I did one in New York, that kind of got me going again, because I had to kind of put my solo career on hold, in a sense, when I left to do this tour. We played the Superbowl beginning of February, and [then] I went home, I had a week. And then I was [in L.A.] for the L.A. Music Awards, I think that was the one it was. They nominated me for four categories, but I won best artist and I closed their ceremony … The next night I headlined The Whiskey, on Saturday, for the first time. … I grew up in East Texas, so headlining The Whiskey on a Saturday night, that’s almost unthinkable. … I got on the plane, the first flight out, the next morning, and left to start doing rehearsals for this tour. I did some things in Europe, mainly a couple of TV things. I booked a gig in New York, I did that, had a great turnout … I played with a friend of mine in Chicago and then I just played Seattle last night, so now I’m trying to fill in some gigs when I can, because … I’m all excited about doing that again.

Has it been difficult finding a balance between your solo career and touring with Madonna?
It hasn’t been. The hard part is finding a place that has availability on whatever your day off is. I had a day off yesterday, so I was able to book a show. And we only booked it like a week, maybe two weeks before. We didn’t have a lot of time to promote it and all that, but mainly just to get out there and keep playing and see who comes out and just kind of build a relationship with the cities, because I’m working on booking my own tour next year in the spring. I’m doing everything on my own, I’m not on a record label or anything like that. You just have to take it step by step.

You mentioned you’re currently working on your third album. Is there a release date yet?
It’s coming out in three parts, and the first part comes out November 19. I’ve got some songs that are stripped-down acoustic songs, and then I’ve got some songs that are like super heavy and then some songs that are blues songs. So I’m releasing each of those in three parts and I’m working with the producer Flemming Rasmussen. He’s my favorite producer ever. He did Kat Stevens, Rainbow, Morbid Angel. But mainly what I really love is that he did the classic Metallica albums: Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, …And Justice for All. That’s the stuff I grew up on, that’s the stuff I still listen to to this day. So it’s great having somebody who you can reference something that’s [one of] your favorite albums. Like, “Hey, can you give it this sound like you did on this song?” So I’m excited for what else we have coming up in the future.
- Las Vegas Weekly

Monte Pittman was honored with the Career Achievement Rock Guitarist Award for both his impressive solo work on two albums, as well as his guitar work with Madonna, Prong and Adam Lambert at the 6th Annual Hollywood F.A.M.E. Awards at the historic Avalon Theater in Hollywood.

Al Bowman, the event producer said, "We all know who the biggest superstars in the world are. My question is what would they be without the super-sidemen to make them sound so good? Monte Pittman is one of those individuals who contributes to and raises the overall performance level of Madonna's shows, or any other's show he performs in for that matter. Not only is Monte a guitar master, he is a good and generous man who contributes in abundance to the music community. Monte's recognition with this award is deserved."

Award recipient Stevie Hawkins, performed double duty at the 22nd Annual Los Angeles Music Awards show by acting as a presenter for the 6th Annual Hollywood F.A.M.E. awards, conducting Monte Pittman's award presentation. According to Al Bowman, "Stevie was both gracious and flawless in his delivery of the award for Monte."

During the presentation of the award, a three-minute video bio reel about Mr. Pittman's successful career was screened for the audience, followed by a remote video stream of Monte thanking everyone for the honor of the award. Due to Mr. Pittman being on tour with Madonna and unable to attend the event, Max Whipple and Kane Ritchotte who are members of Monte's own band accepted the award on his behalf. (L-R in the photo above: Actress Dustin Quick, Kane Ritchotte, Max Whipple, Stevie Hawkins and TV personality Tamara Henry).

Monte Pittman has played on every live Madonna tour starting with her 2001 Drowned World Tour, to sharing writing credits on songs like “Easy Ride,� “Hey You� and “It’s So Cool� from Madonna's 2009 "Celebration" album.

Monte has also played guitar and bass for the industrial rock band Prong. He is credited with co-writing songs on Scorpio Rising from 2003 and co-writing/co-producing their 2007 album, Power of the Damager, to which he also added backing vocals and bass. Monte has also been the lead guitarist and music director for Adam Lambert’s live band, and recently toured on the Glam Nation Tour. His rock influence is evident in Lambert’s more recent live performances. Fingers fly on the fret board during electric solos, while his acoustic skills are showcased in the stripped-down arrangements of Adam’s songs.

In November 2009, Monte released his debut solo album, The Deepest Dark, which features 11 acoustic songs. Almost a year after its release, a special bonus version of The Deepest Dark was released and immediately reached the No. 1 spot on the Best-Selling Acoustic Albums list on CD- Baby.com. It was also No. 9 in the Top 10 Best-Selling CDs for the autumn of 2010.

He also recently released his second album, Pain, Love & Destiny, which in its first week made it to No. 1 Rock Album, No. 1 Pop Album, and made it onto the Top 10 Albums chart. In addition, it cracked iTunes’ Top 200 within its first week, making it the only album by an independent artist to have done so.

This year, Jarrell Guitars honored Mr. Pittman with his very own signature "Monte Pittman MPS Series" guitar. Monte also performed with his new signature guitar at the 2012 Super Bowl alongside Madonna. As well as being honored with a Career Achievement Award from the Hollywood F.A.M.E. Awards, Guitar Planet has inducted his new signature Jarrell guitar into its Hall of Fame, along with being up for Guitar Planet’s Guitar of the Year Award.

Monte Pittman is currently performing on Madonna’s 2012 MDNA World Tour. - Mi2n.com