Bob Hughes

Bob Hughes is a California native, born in Los Angeles and has lived in various Southern California suburbs all his life.  He began playing drums and guitar at age 14 until putting his dreams of live musical performance on the  back-burner in early 20's in favor of taking touring technician positions for the following 6 years of rock and roll on the road.  

Beginning as a drum tech for Ambrosia and working through all aspects of back line for such artists as Supertramp, Jaco Pastorius, and Pat Benatar for the first few years, then moving to sound and lighting with Audio Analysts and Showlites for Sheena Easton, The Cars, Ratt, KISS, Cameo, Culture Club, and more.

A lucky opportunity allowed Bob to move from touring crew to in-house staff as Vice President of Showlites in Compton, California in the mid-eighties.  A few years of production and sales at Showlites, then Light and Sound Design in Newbury Park, then back to a position as General Manager of Showpower in Compton finally paved the way to the ultimate opportunity which has grown to a position as Vice President and co-owner of All Access Staging and Productions and Versa Stage Manufacturing in Torrance.     

An ongoing passion with hard & progressive rock music has taken Bob on a journey from Iron Butterfly and Jimi Hendrix through the YES years to Van Halen, Symphony X, and Dream Theater.  Recent drum influences include Ray Luzier, Jason Rullo, Michael Portnoy and Neil Peart.  Guitar heros, like so many others, include Jimi Hendrix, Ed Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen and Michael Romeo.

HUGHES' GEAR:

Bob is currently rocking a 7-piece birch Mapex drum kit with Zildjian cymbals, Tama snare drum, Tama hardware and DW kick pedals.   He fills his part-time lead-guitar duties on stage with an augmented Kramer 1984 re-isssue backed up by Peavey XXX amplification and speaker cabinets.   His home studio includes a digital 16-track Yamaha recorder/mixer, a Yamaha DTXtreme digital drum kit, another Peavey XXX combo and cab, a pair of Yamaha keyboards and over half a dozen top quality axes including  a Kramer 5150 and Jersey Star, Charvel EVH, Yngwie Strat, and Steve Vai Ibanez Jem 7