While learning the licks of all the great shredders of the 80′s and 90′s like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Yngwie Malmsteen, Sean discovered classical music and the acoustic guitar. This would change his direction forever. He then learned Flamenco and all types of acoustic styles. Early influences were Pepe Romero and Julian Bream.What attracted me to the acoustic guitar was the fact that one can play many things on it all at once. With electric, it is very limiting. Acoustic was my doorway to musical freedom. -Sean

Sean then joined a band called Burning Tree Project (BTP), and spent the next 5 years touring the U.S. and Canada. This is where Sean learned to sing and write songs. During this time, the band found themselves several opportunities with MTV and even opened for Plain White T’s and Fallout Boy.

After BTP decided to disband, Sean found himself a very successful career on the other side of the spotlight. Sean began to compose and produce music for film and tv with some of the biggest names in the business. With clients like X-Box, Bank of New York, Franklin Templeton, NBC, Discovery, and Honda, Sean really learned how to create very commercial sounding music that appealed to a very wide audience.

During his time creating music for various companies, Sean noticed a new trend. People were passing funny and cool videos around on the internet. This led Sean to arranging and performing a solo version of the Simpsons theme song on guitar and posting it on the web as SHONSTA. At this point in time, the Youtube staff would feature their favorite videos on the Youtube homepage. One day they featured Sean’s Simpsons video and it transformed him into the online guitarist known as Shonsta. The video received over 5million hits in a few months and Sean was even invited to numerous scoring sessions for several Simpsons episodes. Thanks to Alf Claussen (composer for The Simpsons), Sean’s composing abilities where taken to even higher levels.

After producing a song for Underworld 3: Rise of The Lycans, Sean and Aaron Robinson (Singer of the band Ghosts On The Radio), started a new band together called Vasona. Before they could even finish recording the album, the Marketing director of the San Francisco Giants got wind of their single “We Find Our Way” and it ended up being the team theme song for all of 2012. Three more Vasona songs were featured on different commercials for the SF Giants and even in a Best Buy Commercial.

After Sean moved back down to the Los Angeles area he decided to take his music to the next level as SHONSTA. He found a way to blend the flashy technicality of his guitar playing with his love for Pop music, thus founding the new genre FLASH-POP. Sean was then featured on Youtube yet again, as “Artist of The Month” for his first single “Melodic Wings”. This new sound has captured the imagination of many other artists who have payed homage by posting their own versions of Melodic Wings, making this new style a cult phenomenon.

The rest is future history.

www.shonsta.com