john williams

John Williams joined the Daugherty band in 2005 and plays both the acoustic and the electric guitars, usually playing rhythm guitar and occasionally playing lead. He's always loved music, and picked up the acoustic guitar in 7th grade after a soccer injury put him in a full-length cast for several months. After watching Van Halen's "Panama," and getting pumped up about playing the guitar, he started with an acoustic, taking classical guitar lessons along the way. As John says, "After too many renditions of "Greensleeves", I got an electric guitar and switched to taking rock lessons...and I never looked back." In high school, he played in a band called Atrium that wrote and played all original music. They won the Battle of the Bands three years in a row, and even did some studio work. His parents, however, kept him on the path to college, so he had to give it up when he left. John's favorite song to play is a complicated rock instrumental called La Villa Strangiato by Rush. "If you can play La Villa, you can play just about anything," John says. Rush is also his favorite band, and Alex Lifeson is his favorite guitarist. John can also play the 12 string guitar and some bass guitar, and would choose to play the drums, if he could pick another instrument to add to his repertoire.

John has an ERP and management consulting background and is currently working on an IT Strategy project at Anheuser-Busch. He has been with Daugherty since 2005.