Born and raised in Seattle, Ben Woods taught himself electric guitar by playing along to Iron Maiden albums. Around the age of 21, his electric guitar, amplifier and other gear was stolen by a junkie, so he kept practicing metal on his “beater classical guitar” and thought, “Hey this sounds like that crazy Spanish Guitar stuff!” Woods found that FLAMENCO is what he was thinking of, and began teaching himself until he needed to take formal lessons.
This opened up a whole new world of culture, art, dance, rhythm, traveling to Spain, and eventual mastery of the instrument.
Inspired by Paco de Lucia, he embarked on his flamenco education about 20 years ago and thought this style of playing would be so great in a speed metal context. He searched the world to find something like that but it didn’t exist, so he pioneered the style of arranging metal songs for flamenco guitar.
After…
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