Steve Di Giorgio

Di Giorgio has played bass guitar in heavy metal and death metal bands such as Death,[1] Autopsy,[2] Control Denied,[3] Ephel Duath,[4] Obscura,[5] Artension, Faust, Memorain, Painmuseum, Suicide Shift, Soen,[6] Vintersorg,[7] Dragonlord,[8] Iced Earth,[9] Sebastian Bach,[10] Obituary,[11] and is a founding member of Sadus.[12] He is a founding member of the jazz band Dark Hall and has played bass in other bands such as Testament,[13][14] Futures End,[15] Synesis Absorption, Mythodea, Charred Walls of the Damned,[16] Anatomy of I,[17] Gone in April, and Spirits of Fire.[18] 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.[19][20][21]

Within his genre, Di Giorgio is respected for his highly technical playing skills.[22][23][24][25] 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 instead of a pick. 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.[26][27]

By April 2020, Di Giorgio had been diagnosed with COVID-19. He is the second member of Testament, following vocalist Chuck Billy, to have been tested positive for the condition.[28][29]

Di Giorgio plays 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 also plays custom ESP basses. He is mostly seen with 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.[30]

Steve's bass guitars

• 4001 Custom Rickenbacker (1981)
• Fully Custom Homemade Fender-Like Fretless (1991)[31]
• 4001 Rickenbacker (1975)
• Custom Carvin BB75F (1996)[31]
• Custom Carvin BB75 (1999)
• ESP – LTD F-205 (1999)
• ESP Custom Forest 5-string Fretless (1999)[32]
• ESP Doubleneck Bass[33]
• Thor Bass Mjolnir 5-string fretless (2008),[34] since converted to be played with only 3 strings.
• Thor Bass Mjolnir 6-string Fretless (2010)[34]
• 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)