Dave Reffett

In 2015 Michael Angelo Batio released the album Shred Force 1: The Essential MAB via Rat Pak Records, which contained Reffett's composition "Juggernaut". Reffett also appeared on "8 Pillars Of Steel" from the album. Shred Force 1 reached #11 on the Billboard Top Hard Rock Albums chart, #2 on the Heatseekers chart, #121 on the Top Current Albums chart, #39 on the Rock Albums chart, and #21 on the Independent Albums chart.

Reffett was a primarily self-taught player from age 13–18, taking very few lessons, but ended up studying music and business at the world-renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. He was a recipient of the Berklee World Scholarship Tour award and the Berklee Best award.

He is also an in-demand guitar teacher. He gives lessons in person and online via Skype and films teaching products for companies like Guitar World, Dangerous Guitar, and Lecture Land. In 2012, Reffett appeared on the cover of the May issue of Asia's Gitar Plus Magazine and was on the cover again in 2014. 2014 also found Reffett giving clinics all over the world in places like China, Mexico, Chile, and the world-famous Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California. He also appeared on the cover of Mexico's Heavy Riff magazine in 2014.

In 2011 at the Winter NAMM show, San Luis Obisbo, California-based company Esoterik guitars unveiled a Dave Reffett signature model guitar known as the DR-1. The guitar featured all of Reffett's favorite specifications such as a Floyd Rose tremolo system and Seymour Duncan Blackout Pickups. It also featured a five-piece walnut neck with figured maple strips, a Honduras mahogany body and ebony overlays, volume knobs and fretboard .

Reffett made headlines on popular heavy metal news sites for his jams with Chris Poland and George Lynch at the 2011 NAMM event. Guitar World Magazine tweeted photos of Reffett performing at the Eminence speakers booth and Premier Guitar magazine filmed Reffett and George Lynch jamming together at the Mr. Scary guitars booth.

In 2010 Bruce Dickinson, the singer of the legendary heavy metal band Iron Maiden, called the album a "must-have" on his BBC radio program Friday Rock Show and called Reffett's guitar playing "fantastic." Nationally syndicated radio show Hard Rock Nights named The Call Of The Flames the #5 album of the year in its "Best Hard Rock of 2010" list.

At various stages of his career, Reffett was an artist endorsee of Gibson, Legator and Esoterik Guitars. He is now signed to the Dean Guitars artist roster, and plays their Dean #11 Custom V and 450 Custom from Dean's Graphyte series. He has been seen playing Gibson Flying V's in Guitar World magazine video shoots and has used both Gibson guitars and Esoterik guitars for Guitar World's "lick of the day" iPhone application videos. In the pages of Guitar World he was seen playing a Dean MAB1 Armorflame Michael Angelo Batio signature guitar in the October and November 2010 issues respectively. He has also been seen in Indonesia's Gitar Plus magazine and Poland's Hard Rocker magazine playing a mix of Gibson and Dean guitars. For the recording of "The Call of the Flames", Dave primarily used his Gibson Flying V guitars. For a couple of songs that had whammy bar dive bombs he used a BC Rich Bich, and on the clean intro to "I Just Don't Want To Say Goodbye" he used a Yamaha nylon string classical guitar.

He got the idea for Shredding The Envelope in 2009. Reffett has been quoted in interviews saying, "I really wanted to make an album that I would be the first in line to buy".

2009's The Call Of The Flames featured performances from famous musicians George Lynch, Michael Angelo Batio, Chris Poland, Glen Drover, Joe Stump, and Mike Mangini. It featured studio mixing from acclaimed producer Andrew "Mudrock" Murdock (Godsmack, Alice Cooper, Avenged Sevenfold) engineering by Steve Catizone, and was mastered by legendary engineer George Marino (Metallica, Kiss, AC/DC, Guns N' Roses). Producer Joe Clapp (Sully Erna of Godsmack) was the primary engineer during the recording of the album.

While finishing high school in Denver, Reffett was contemplating taking the Berklee College of Music up on the scholarship they had offered him during a summer program there the previous year. He decided to take advantage of the scholarship after he had a chance meeting with one of his childhood heroes, Megadeth frontman and thrash metal pioneer Dave Mustaine. In 2001 Reffett won a KBPI radio contest to meet Mustaine and asked him if he should take the scholarship or hit the road in a band. Mustaine told him "don't look a gift horse in the mouth, if you've got the chance to do something like that for free go get as many weapons in your arsenal as you can and make your army as tough as it can be".

Dave Reffett, the son of a coal miner, grew up in the hills of the Appalachian Mountains in Eastern Kentucky and began playing trumpet, tuba, baritone, and French horn at age 11. At age 13 he was inspired to pick up the guitar after seeing video for Metallica's "The Unforgiven". In 1999 at age 16 he released one album with the short-lived band Graveyard Earth, called Warning Shot. Reffett was forced out of the group after he voiced his distaste of the band's overall direction. Upon leaving Kentucky and moving to Denver, Colorado, Reffett joined the band Moore, playing many live shows but releasing no records with the band. He quit during the recording of what would have been their first album together.

Dave Reffett (born June 6, 1983) is a hard rock and heavy metal guitarist, singer, producer and bassist from Blue River, Kentucky.

On Shredding The Envelope, Reffett uses a vintage 1978 Morley Power Fuzz Wah pedal that he has mentioned in many interviews. The pedal is the same model that Cliff Burton used on the first three Metallica albums, Kill Em All, Ride The Lightning, and Master of Puppets. He occasionally uses a Crybaby Wah pedal and uses various effects when producing in the studio.

The album was also in the running for a Grammy nomination during the 53rd annual Grammy Awards voting season in many categories, including "Best Hard Rock Performance" for the song "Caravan of Cannibals" and "Best Metal Performance" for "Devils Roadmap".