Nili Brosh plays with the Tony MacAlpine Band at Saint Rocke Aug. 13
Israeli-born now LA-based guitarist, Nili Brosh has created quite a stir among metal and fusions fans. For a 26-year-old young woman, her fast licks and ease through cord transitions has the leading players of these genre seeking her out to play along side them. Her blazing skills can be seen with the Tony MacAlpine Band that also includes Aquiles Priester on drums and Bjorn Englen on bass at Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach on Wed, Aug. 13 and Ramona Mainstage on Fri, Aug 15.
“I always loved music and grew up listening to this style of music,” said Brosh. “Tony (MacAlpine) was a big inspirations of mine growing up and now I get to play his music along with him.”
Brosh was influenced by her older brother, Ethan’s love of the electric guitar as well as his love of 80s rock and fusion bands, of which MacAlpine’s albums were a big part of. In time, Brosh had developed her own appreciation and style for the electric guitar, and became an avid fan of heavy guitar driven music.
“All I wanted to do when I got my first electric guitar at age 12 was sit with my ear to the speaker and try to make out every note,” Brosh says. “I was still a part of a generation that did not have YouTube to mimic the way the musician is using their fingering when they play, so even if my interpretation of the notes was right I might have been wrong on the fingering positions, which might make a song harder to play.”
When Brosh was 12 years old, her brother got accepted to the famed Berklee School of Music in Boston, Mass so her parents uprooted the entire family and moved to Boston so her brother could attend the school. By then, she knew she would soon follow him and began preparing herself to audition taking guitar lessons from teachers who also taught at the school.
Brosh graduated Summa Cum Laude from Berklee in 2009 with a B.M in Professional Music. She also became one of the youngest faculty members in the Berklee summer guitar programs, where she has been teaching since age 19.
“I went to a high school that had students either going to Harvard or being seen as doing nothing with their lives so not many people understood why I was working towards going to Berklee,” explains Brosh. “Luckily, my brother had already been through the process so I just had to stay focused and I got accepted too.”
In 2010, Nili self-released her debut instrumental album, Through The Looking Glass, which features guitar legend Andy Timmons as a guest soloist, and the rhythm section of her own Nili Brosh Band. Brosh’s second album, “A Matter of Perception” is set for release on Sept 11, 2014 and features a variety of great players.
“I grew up listening to a lot of different styles of much, not just guitar driven bands and fusion,” Brosh says. “I like muli-tonal music like in Turkish or Middle Eastern music and 90s boy bands like Backstreet Boys. Max Martin’s arrangements are still great to listen to and when you can still hear something new in a pop song no matter how much you listen to it, you know it is good music.”
In January 2011, Brosh joined the progressive metal band “Seven The Hardway,” which featured guitar virtuoso MacAlpine (Steve Vai, Planet X, CAB), legendary drummer Virgil Donati (Planet X, CAB), and renowned vocalist Mark Boals (Yngwie Malmsteen, Uli Jon Roth). About a month later she was also asked to join MacAlpine’s touring solo band along with bassist Bjorn Englen (Yngwie Malmsteen), and famed drummer Marco Minnemann (Paul Gilbert, The Aristocrats).
“I get asked in a lot of interviews what it is like to be just now touring with Tony, but I have actually been playing with him since 2011,” said Brosh. “For me it feels like we have been playing together for a while now.”
Since graduating from Berklee, Brosh has performed with Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson), Guthrie Govan (Asia), Andy Timmons (Danger Danger, Olivia Newton-John), The Iron Maidens (world’s only all-female tribute to Iron Maiden), The Aristocrats, and has opened for artists such as Terry Ilous (XYZ), Joey Molland (Badfinger), and Pat Travers. She also tours in her brother’s band, The Ethan Brosh Band, and they were the opener for Yngwie Malmsteen on his 2013 U.S. tour.