Arielle

Arielle (born August 3, 1990) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitar player based in California. 

Early life and education

Arielle was born on August 3, 1990, in New Jersey. She was raised in California and Hawaii.

Her musical career began at the age of 5, when she began singing with the Peninsula Girls Chorus of California. Her father bought her first guitar when she was ten years old. She fell in love with music, and chose it as her career. Later, she attend Musician’s Institute in L.A., California, and continued her music education at London’s Institute of Contemporary Music Performance.

She cites Queen and Boston as her musical influences.

Career

In 2010, when she was twenty, she was discovered by guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, the lead guitarist of the Boston rock band Extreme. Shortly after, she signed with an indie record label. In the following years, she toured throughout North America and the UK, opening and playing with well-known musicians including Country Joe McDonald, Joe Bonamassa, Guns N’ Roses, Billy Ray Cyrus, Eric Johnson, Michael Angelo Batio, Uli Jon Roth and Gregg Allman. In 2011, she was a guitarist for Cee Lo Green at Coachella, after which she was signed to Open E entertainment. That same year, she was featured on the cover of Guitar Player Magazine's online magazine Guts & Glitter.

Brian May, the lead guitarist of Queen, chose Arielle for a key role in the London-based musical, "We Will Rock You," a production based on the Queen’s songs. Vince Gill, American country singer and guitarist, recognized her as one of the “Top 5 Best New Guitarists.”

Activism

In 2012, Arielle sang with a number of global activists in Taiji to protest dolphin slaughter. She also opened for Heart, Joan Jett, and Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash at Kiss the Sky in 2014, which was a concert raising awareness for captive whales and dolphins.

In 2013, she teamed up with Red Decibel Music Group (Adam Watts & Gannin Arnold) to produce her EP California, an acoustic guitar folk/pop track; this track became one of her most notable and played songs. Her video of the song ranked #3 on CMT Country Pure Charts.

Arielle also designs guitars, and has more recently set up her own recording studio, where she records and releases material independently.