Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Angel

Michael Aaron "Mike" Einziger (born June 21, 1976) is an American musician, best known as the guitarist and co-songwriter of the rock band Incubus. Einziger is widely known as an innovator and enthusiast of the use of pedalboard guitar effects during live concerts, and was voted #41 in Total Guitar's top 100 guitarists of all time in 2002. In an interview with Gibson Guitars, writer Steven Rosen states "[Einziger] hasn’t played the guitar so much as he has manipulated it, submitted it to his own needs. Einziger fashions a sonic tapestry that draws heavily from the Zappa/Vai/Hendrix school of rock."[1] Mike is also an active composer, writing his first full-scale orchestral concert entitled "End.>vacuum", as well as "Forced Curvature of Reflective Surfaces"; an experimental composition that was featured at the "West Coast, Left Coast" Festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall. He co-wrote and played acoustic guitar on Avicii's 2013 worldwide hit "Wake Me Up".[2] Alongside this, Einziger also recently co-wrote and played guitar on David Guetta's Lovers on the Sun.

Outside of his work with Incubus, Einziger founded his own project Time Lapse Consortium in 2003. The group featured Incubus musicians Jose Pasillas II and Ben Kenney (who was not a member of Incubus at the time), Neal Evans of the band Soulive, and long-time collaborator Suzie Katayama contributing string arrangements. The band had their debut show at The Roxy in LA, and would go on to play Jimmy Kimmel and the Knitting Factory in New York City.

In 2003 Einziger contributed to Ziggy Marley's debut solo album Dragonfly alongside fellow Incubus member Chris Kilmore as well as Flea and John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers.[3] Einziger expanded into the realm of video games when he and his bandmates worked on the soundtrack of the popular game Halo 2, writing a 26-minute song that also featured Flea on trumpet. In 2006 Einziger produced the debut album "Red Rover" by Agent Sparks; a collaboration with younger brothers Benjamin Einziger and Paul Fried.

In 2007, Einziger produced Nighttiming, the debut album of long-time friend and former Phantom Planet drummer and actor Jason Schwartzman's Coconut Records project.[4] The album featured appearances by Kirsten Dunst, Zooey Deschanel, and Robert Schwartzman, and was recorded at Einziger's own home studio in Malibu, CA (Casa Chica).