sgt pepper Tribute band Tom Kolb biography

Tom Kolb

Tom plays lead guitar for Sgt. Pepper, and sings lead and background vocals.

He began playing guitar at the tender age of 11, soon thereafter forming his own band, The King’s III, which played school dances and parties around his hometown of Dublin, California. (In his teen years, Tom’s bands competed with Dennis Jones’s bands for local gigs. Jones bio)

Tom has been a professional musician his entire adult life, playing guitar in his own groups (The Gurus, Shiner, and the Flamingos) as well as for other artists (Edgar Winter, Mark Lindsay, Mitch Ryder, and many others). A veteran of over 6,000 live performances and recording sessions world wide, he has found himself in just about every musical situation imaginable.

Tom also enjoys a teacher/author career. An instructor at the world famous Musicians Institute (formerly G.I.T.) since 1989, he is also the author of several popular guitar instructional books, and countless magazine articles. Currently, he writes a monthly column titled “Soloing Strategies” in Guitar World magazine. Tom is also the featured artist in a wide variety of guitar instructional videos both in DVD form and downloadable on the web. CLICK HERE to see them.

Having been a Beatles fan since their Ed Sullivan debut, Tom is very excited to be playing with Sgt. Pepper—recreating their music, and honoring their influence. “The Beatles have been my heroes since before I picked up the guitar. One of the first solos I ever learned was ‘Day Tripper,’ and to this day it’s still just as much fun to play as it was when I was a flailing young guitarist,” Kolb explained.

Kolb plays a Gibson Les Paul, a Gretsch Country Classic, and a Schecter 12-string guitar, along with an assortment of effects pedals and a Groove Tubes Soul-o 75 amplifier, to approximate the broad spectrum of Beatle guitar textures.