About Jason Stallworth
Metal guitarist. Songwriter. Lifter. Still at it.
I’m Jason Stallworth, a metal guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter based in Tampa, FL. I’ve been performing and writing music since the early 90s, and I have absolutely no plans to stop.
Most people find me through my YouTube channel or the Jason Stallworth Guitar Academy. But the academy exists because of the music, not the other way around. Everything I teach, every riff breakdown, every lesson on developing your own style, traces back to the same place I’ve been writing songs from since I was a teenager: the deep end, with no blueprint and no apologies.
I’ve released five solo albums, played live metal shows with recruited bands, and spent the last several years playing solo acoustic gigs around Tampa Bay. I’m also working on what comes next. More on that below.
My Story (the short version… sort of)
How it started
Everything changed in 1989 because of a guy I barely knew. He was always happy, always headbanging on the bass, always air-drumming with his Walkman headphones. One day, I worked up the nerve to ask what he was listening to. He said “Metallica,” smiled, and went right back to air-drumming.
I mowed lawns until I had $20, then bought two cassettes: Metallica’s Puppets and Justice. A few days later, I heard Joe Satriani’s Flying in a Blue Dream. That combination, heavy riffs and melodic lead playing, basically hard-coded my entire musical DNA.
Queensrÿche, Scorpions, and every hair band worth mentioning filled in the rest of my collection of cassettes (wish I still had those).
I must mention that many years before I ever though if picking up guitar, I was obsessed with 80s rock and pop music. It spoke to me in such a deep way (which I’m sure you understand that feeling). But I was listening to Prince, Madonna, Genesis, The Police, Michael Jackson…the list goes on.
Evolving Influences
As the years went on, the influences got heavier and more melodic at the same time. Arch Enemy, Amon Amarth, Nightwish, Evergrey, Delain, Sonata Arctica, that European melodic death and symphonic metal world pulled me in hard and never really let go. It changed how I write and what I reach for when I’m building a song.
Living in Tampa also meant I got to become friends with people in bands like Siren, Nasty Savage, Oblivion, and Must Not Kill. The local scene here is real, and it’s shaped me more than I could list. If I tried to name everyone, we’d be here all day writing a book.
Metal Meets Church
Here’s something people don’t expect: even while I was deep into metal, I was also playing guitar in churches throughout my early years. Practicing Metallica songs on a Tuesday, playing old gospel hymns on a Sunday. Completely normal.
The best thing to come out of that was my mentor, Ronnie Goodman, a blues and jazz guitarist who had zero interest in metal but everything to teach me about the guitar. He pushed me to learn the fretboard properly, play in keys like A♭ and E♭ that nobody chooses voluntarily, and adapt to situations where the guitar isn’t the center of attention. Those lessons made me a better player than any amount of shredding would have. RIP, Ronnie.
First Bands & Pensacola Days
My first real band was Palin Genesia, Greek for “a new beginning,” which is either poetic or pretentious depending on your mood. Mid-90s, alternative rock with solos. (I have never and will never join a band that doesn’t want guitar solos. That’s a hard line.)
After that, my friend Eddie Gray and I started a band called The Guys. Our close friend Tom Sherman joined just in time for our biggest show, Springfest ’99 in Pensacola. Mostly originals. Mostly melodic rock. Short-lived, as most things are. But worth every minute.
Moving to Tampa & Dark Times
The dream was always to get that phone call from a label. It never came, and honestly, that was on me. I never truly went all-in.
I moved from Pensacola to Tampa in 2000. A few bands, a worship team, a lot of years that I won’t go into detail about here. What I’ll say is this: during some genuinely dark stretches, two things kept me from completely losing it: music and the gym. More on the gym in a minute.
A New Beginning
In 2008, I met my wife, Candy. She pushed me to start a YouTube channel, which I did in 2010. She pushed me to pursue the music fully, which I did. She was right about both. She usually is.
In 2013, I released Apocalyptic Dreams, my first official album. Everything that followed came from that first leap.
Metal, Guitar, and Muscle
About a year before I picked up a guitar, I started picking up weights. I was a skinny kid with zero self-confidence who got picked on a lot. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone movies convinced me that lifting was the answer. (I also thought it would help me get girls. Massive misconception.)
It took years to gain any real size. I was never naturally big or strong. But I kept pushing, kept showing up, kept becoming a slightly better version of myself than I was the week before. That mindset, remaining consistent without any guarantee, eventually became the theme of everything I do, musically and otherwise.
Metal and weights just go together. Always have. It’s basically PB&J on roids. (I’m not apologizing for that pun.)
In 2017, I put that whole story into a book: Heavy Metal & Weights: My Story of Guitar, Weights, Heavy Metal Workout Albums, Passion, and Building Muscle. Fair warning: I’m not a proclaimed intellectual. It’s an easy read. Think metal version of Lynyrd Skynyrd. I’m a Simple Man.
Why I Started a Guitar Academy
Over time, I realized one of the things I enjoy most is helping others build confidence in who they are, because I struggled so much with that myself. When I got on YouTube, I found that I could do that through guitar lessons and content.
I understood that, because I lived it. I know what it feels like to think you’re not good enough, at guitar, and at life in general. I built the Jason Stallworth Guitar Academy because I wanted a focused place to help metal guitarists develop their own style, not just copy someone else’s. The world doesn’t need another player trying to sound like their favorite guitarist. It needs you, playing like you.
Back to the Music
At my core, I’m a songwriter. That’s the thing that drives everything else.
I’ve released five solo albums across instrumental metal, melodic death metal, and melodic heavy metal, each one a step further into the artist I’m becoming. My most recent album, Overcometh, is the clearest picture yet of what I’m going for: heavy when it needs to be, melodic when the song calls for it, and lyrically honest about the darker corners of the mind and what it takes to rise above them.
I’ve played live metal shows at venues like the Brass Mug here in Tampa, recruiting musicians to bring the albums to the stage. I also play regular solo acoustic shows, covers, mostly 80s, which has quietly become one of the most satisfying things I do. And right now, I’m writing music that sounds like what happens when those two worlds start to overlap.
There’s more coming. There’s always more coming.
👉 Check out all my albums on the Music page.
Let’s Connect
If you made it this far, thanks. I mean that. Go check out the music, and if something hits, let me know. That’s still what this whole thing is about.
Questions? Head to the Contact page. The business side of all this runs through Uncle Jason Productions, LLC, which is a real company name that we stand behind completely.