BIO

MICHAEL HARRIS, the son of two master-degreed musicians, was born into a musical world in the Midwest U.S. town of Dayton, Ohio in the ‘60s. After favoring sports as a child, he soon discovered music and started playing the trumpet at age 11 in the school band. Then at age 14, Michael picked up guitar and never looked back. He soon formed his first band, Tyrant, which played the Ohio club circuit for a number of years until the mid 80s, when he formed Arch Rival, which became a powerful global hard rock act that has released 4 CD’s to date.

In 1991, Michael completed his first solo instrumental album, “Defense Mechanizms”, which was released with much critical acclaim. After a tour and live CD with the Chastain / Harris band, entitled “Live! Wild & Truly Diminished”, Michael relocated to Dallas, Texas in 1994. Shortly following his move, MH released his second instrumental disc, “Ego Decimation Profile”, and also around this same time formed a metal band, Surgeon, which gained yet more fans worldwide with their 1996 brutal debut, “Encyclopedia of the Insane”.

Michael, the multi-instrumentalist / composer has continued to maintain a very successful solo career. He released “Distorted Views” in 1999, followed by “Sketches From the Thought Chamber” in 2001, and his first solo vocal release, “Words Collide” in 2003. In November of 2006, Lion Music released yet another instrumental album from Michael, a neo-classical opus entitled “Orchestrate”, which received some of MH’s highest accolades to date from fans and media. In 2010, Michael released his 7th solo album, “Tranz-Fused”, which was a combo of rock, jazz, funk, & blues, and most recently, he released his follow-up to “Orchestrate”, entitled “Orchestrate II: Rage & Restraint”, pushing Michael’s compositional skills to a new level.

In recent years, Michael was also recruited by world renowned keyboard virtuoso Vitalij Kuprij, to play on 3 of his records, “Forward and Beyond”, “Revenge” and “Glacial Inferno”.

Since 2007, Michael founded 2 more groups and wrote all the music for their 4 global releases: “Angular Perceptions”, and the concept album, “Psykerion” from proggers THOUGHT CHAMBER, both on the InsideOut Music label, and “Altered Reflections” and “Fated to Burn” from metallers DARKOLOGY, both garnering yet more critical acclaim, and a 2014 European tour for the latter.

In the early ‘90s live arena, Michael began to stun audiences with his own band under the moniker, The Michael Harris Project, which eventually morphed into The Michael Harris Tranz-Fusion in 2001. These bands have performed with the likes of Joe Satriani, Rick Derringer, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Black Label Society, and more, and now also features Michael’s younger brother Brian Harris, on drums.

Michael continues to compose, record, and release cutting edge music, while performing live with several of his bands. As Michael states, “I’m forever grateful to be able to express myself through the magic of music and guitar”.