NAMM 2010: Exclusive Interview with Orianthi

Thu, 04 Mar 2010

25 Year old Australian Singer-Song writer Orianthi Panagaris released her debut album 'Believe' towards the end of 2009 worldwide.

After performing at the 2009 Grammy Awards with Carrie Underwood Michael Jackson got in touch with Orianthi with a life changing offer to his lead guitarist for the O2 Arena shows, she joined the prestigious line of amazing guitar players including Eddie Van Halen, Slash, and Carlos Santana and the experience is one she'll never forget.

Orianthi played and sang at the globally televised memorial for Michael Jackson on July 7th and also appears in the Michael Jackson's This Is It film that shows the tour rehearsals, she also presented an American Music Award posthumously in honour of Michael Jackson in 2009.At the age of six Orianthi took an interest in her dad's record collection "Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Cream, Santana… he was into guitar players that are real songwriters," she says on her official website. She then started to play with acoustic guitars and it all came naturally.

When she was 11 she saw Carlos Santana play live and she begged her father to get her a second hand electric guitar so she could be like the guitarist, it was after that show she said good bye acoustic hello electric! Seven years later a dream came true for 18 year old Orianthi when she met and jammed with her hero in front of a hometown crowd when he came back to Adelaide, Australia...

From there in addition to her work with Michael Jackson & Carrie Underwood she has played with Prince, Adam Lambert, Mary J Blige and her first show was supporting Steve Vai! She was also named in the 12 Greatest Female Electric Guitarists. This is definitely one young woman with a huge career ahead of her!

Check out our interview with Orianthi at this year's NAMM show by clicking on the image below!