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| Ronald Jay Blumenthal |
Ronald Jay Blumenthal (born September 25, 1969), better known by his stage name Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, is an American guitarist, songwriter and producer. He is best known for being one of the two current lead guitarists in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses. Thal got the name "Bumblefoot" from the bacterial infection, which he learned about while helping his wife review for her veterinary exams.
Inspired by Gene Simmons at age 6 after hearing the KISS Alive! album, Thal wanted to play bass, but at that age his hands were too small and he started on guitar. Before releasing solo albums, he had songs featured on the Ominous Guitarists of the Unknown compilations. By the mid 1990s, he was becoming noticed as a guitarist of some merit, and also was known for his interesting custom guitars, such as the hand guitar and the Swiss cheese guitar.
After the release of his 9.11 album, featuring the song "Guitars Suck," he had gained fame particularly in Europe, sometimes being the feature of multi-page articles in European magazines.
Guns N' Roses
Thal joined Guns N' Roses before they embarked on a world tour in 2006, filling the position vacated by departed guitarist Buckethead. He made his live debut with the band at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on May 12, 2006. Thal performs some degree of guitar work on every track of the band's 2008 album Chinese Democracy even though he is not credited as main writer on any song.
His song "Firebrand" was the opening theme for MXC, the American adaptation of Takeshi's Castle. He has co-written and performed the theme song to VH1 Classic's That Metal Show[10] and has licensed several of his recordings to television shows on MTV and VH1 such as Hogan Knows Best, The Real World, Made, The Osbournes, and others. Thal made the music for the NY Islanders hockey team's promos for the 2008/2009 season.
In 2008, Thal released his latest solo album, Abnormal, whose sales exceeded his previous solo efforts due to his exposure with Guns N' Roses. On December 23, 2008, he released an acoustic EP called Barefoot, where he took songs from his previous albums and made stripped-down acoustic versions of them. Including a new song entitled Fred Nattaboy Is A Tool.
In February 2009, Thal produced an instrumental metal guitar compilation disc entitled Guitars That Ate My Brain. He oversaw writing, recording and mixing for half the album (co- writing, engineering and mixing as well as guitar and bass playing by Jeremy Krull, drums by Dennis Leeflang), contributed his playing to the song "Disengaged" and mastered the album. Other artists on the album include Devin Townsend, Chris Poland, Shane Gibson, Dave Martone, Paul Waggoner, James Murphy and others.
In June 2009, Thal began touring the US and Europe playing guitar for Lita Ford.
In December 2009, Thal began touring with Guns N' Roses' on the Chinese Democracy World Tour.
In October 2010, Thal took time out whilst on tour with Guns N' Roses to give advice and perform with kids from the Witchwood School Of Rock in Witney UK along with Guns N' Roses drummer Frank Ferrer. During this event they also performed three songs (Shackler's Revenge, Sweet Child O Mine and Paradise City) with tribute band Guns 2 Roses.
On December 3/4 2010, Thal made an appearance in Sydney, Australia as guest guitarist for the heavy metal band Fozzy.
"Guitars Suck" and "Real" have become downloadable pieces of additional content for the videogame Rock Band 2 through the community-driven Rock Band Network.
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