Bobby Gustafson

Robert Wayne "Bobby" Gustafson (born July 15, 1965 in Staten Island, New York City) is an American guitarist, best known as a member of the New York based thrash metal band Overkill.

Career

Bobby Gustafson joined Overkill at 17 years old after an audition, when the band was still playing only covers, coming from the garage band The Dropouts. He stimulated the other members to produce original music and was a key member in the Overkill quartet, having been a composer from the band's debut album Feel the Fire in 1985 to their most commercially successful album, The Years of Decay, in 1989.

Gustafson's split from Overkill has been seen through two viewpoints – that he was fired by the other band members Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth and D. D. Verni (Overkill version) or that he left following Verni trying to remove him from the band through management (Gustafson version). Whatever version is true, his leaving has shown how much Gustafson helped to create the Overkill sound. Instead of Gustafson's guitar work, later Overkill albums featured both a rhythm and a lead guitarist, with Verni taking over the music writing duties.