About
Alex Skolnick is an American musician. He is best known as the lead guitarist and one of the songwriters of the thrash metal band Testament and has played with several other bands, including The Alex Skolnick Trio, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Savatage and the heavy metal supergroup Metal Allegiance.
Skolnick began his musical career at the age of 15 when he joined the local Bay Area thrash metal band Legacy, which eventually became Testament, and performed on five albums with them, between The Legacy (1987) and The Ritual (1992). By the time he left Testament in 1992, Skolnick had found considerable fame among the thrash metal and guitar communities; Guitar World magazine named him one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and as one of the "fastest guitarists of all time".
After his first departure from Testament, Skolnick went on to pursue various musical careers, including briefly replacing Criss Oliva in Savatage for their album Handful of Rain (1994), and starting his jazz band The Alex Skolnick Trio in the early 2000s, which remains active as of 2021. He briefly reunited with Testament in 2001 for the re-recordings of their early songs on the album First Strike Still Deadly, and then returned to the band on a permanent basis in 2005, contributing to four more albums.