Steve Di Giorgio

Di Giorgio has played bass guitar in heavy metal and death metal bands such as Death,[2] Autopsy,[3] Control Denied,[4] Ephel Duath,[5] Obscura,[6] Artension, Faust, Memorain, Painmuseum, Suicide Shift, Soen,[7] Vintersorg,[8] Dragonlord,[9] Iced Earth,[10] Sebastian Bach,[11] Obituary,[12] Megadeth,[13] and is a founding member of Sadus.[14] He is a founding member of the jazz band Dark Hall and has played bass in other bands such as Testament,[15][16] Futures End,[17] Synesis Absorption, Mythodea, Charred Walls of the Damned,[18] Anatomy of I,[19] Gone in April, and Spirits of Fire.[20] Along with his bass duties in Sadus, he also plays keyboards. In October 2019, he founded the fusion-world-metal group Quadvium with fellow fretless bass player Jeroen Paul Thesseling.[21][22][23] A year later, he formed the death metal supergroup Act of Denial.[24][25][26]

Within his genre, Di Giorgio is respected for his highly technical playing skills.[27][28][29][30] He is also widely credited with being the first bassist to bring fretless bass playing into the heavy/extreme metal genre, and often plays bass by using his fingers, although he has been seen using a pick on certain songs. Di Giorgio has stated that his main influences as a bassist are Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, Geezer Butler, Steve Harris, Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius, Billy Sheehan, Dave Pegg and Charles Meeks.[31][32]

Di Giorgio has been married for years,[33] and is the father of a daughter who was born in April 1994.[34][35][36] The family currently resides in Oakland, California.[37]

In April 2020, Di Giorgio was diagnosed with COVID-19. He was the second member of Testament, following vocalist Chuck Billy, to have tested positive for the condition.[38][39]

Di Giorgio endorses Ibanez Guitars and primarily plays a number of different fretted and fretless BTB basses. He previously played two custom Mjolnir basses by Thor Bass; a custom made 5-string fretless model which he has converted to a 3-string and a custom-built 6 string fretless. He's also played custom ESP basses, mostly a F-series fretless 5-string bass in a dark green finish, but also uses a very unusual double-neck construction with a fretted and a fretless neck in one body. He currently uses an EBS Fafner head as his main sound, but has also used Ampeg and Randall in the past.[40]

Steve's bass guitars

• 4001 Custom Rickenbacker (1981)
• Fully Custom Homemade Fender-Like Fretless (1991)[41]
• 4001 Rickenbacker (1975)
• Custom Carvin BB75F (1996)[41]
• Custom Carvin BB75 (1999)
• ESP – LTD F-205 (1999)
• ESP Custom Forest 5-string Fretless (1999)[42]
• ESP Doubleneck Bass[43]
• Thor Bass Mjolnir 5-string fretless (2008),[44] since converted to be played with only 3 strings.
• Thor Bass Mjolnir 6-string Fretless (2010)[44]
• Thor Bass Freyja 7-string Fretted (2013)
• 4003W Rickenbacker modified with a fretless ebony fretboard by Larry Davis (2014)
• Ibanez BTB1605E with a fretless neck (2016)