Charlie Parra del Riego is a Peruvian guitarist and composer. He is also known for his famous YouTube channel "Charlie Parra del Riego".

Charlie was thirteen years old when he started to learn his first instrument, which was a Peruvian Cajón. Spending a lot of his childhood playing games and not being a great student, his parents were told by a school therapist that he ought to learn an instrument in order to focus his energy on something. This led to Charlie picking up the guitar.

Charlie has been influenced by videogame and Electronic music, as well as famous Rock/Metal guitarrists, such as Slash, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Marty Friedman, Kirk Hammett, Robbin Crosby, Dino Cazares, Dimebag Darrell, Johnny Ramone, Gonzalo Farfán and Joaquín Mariátegui.

Charlie started Difonía with a few friends (Ricardo Mendez, Sergio Guerra and Nachi Benza) in year 2003 as a hardcore punk act with heavy metal influences. With this band he composed and recorded the guitars of their 3 albums: “Camino Difícil” (2004), “Tarde o Temprano” (2007) and “Génesis” (2010). As a member of Difonía, Charlie took part of several festivals in the independent rock circuit of Perú and shared stage with international bands as “Silverstein”, “Alesana” and “Tres de Corazón”.

In 2009, Difonía played the Banda Ancha de Medellín festival Colombia.

In 2010 they played in the Colombian festival “Altavoz Festival 2010” at Medellín, together with “The Skatalites”, “Robi Draco Rosa”, “Dante Spinetta”, “Reincidentes” and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Medellín. There was an audience of about 25,000 people.

In 2012 Charlie quit Difonía due musical differences and to pursue a solo career. Difonía eventually disbanded.

Charlie was also member of the Nu Metal/Groove Metal band Serial Asesino from 2005 until 2009.

n year 2009, Charlie was recruited to be a part of the band as a replacement of their lead guitar Jaqo Sangalli. This was a great honour to Charlie, since he was a huge fan of the band. With M.A.S.A.C.R.E, in 2009, he opened the concerts of the Argentinian bands “Los Violadores” and “Rata Blanca” in Lima, Peru. Charlie left M.A.S.A.C.R.E in 2012. His last concert was at the first Lima Live Rock, in front of more than 20,000 attendees.

In the year 2010 Charlie starts his solo career uploading a first series of videos in his YouTube channel, including a heavy metal version of Peru’s National Anthem, the first version of this song in heavy metal style. This version was covered in TV, radio and local newspapers.

In January 2011 he released his first solo album "Procrastinación/Procrastination", together with another series of YouTube videos. These videos got different YouTube awards, including “Most viewed” and to this day is the most subscribed musician from his country. By this time his videos got more than 30 million visits and his channel subscribers passed the 200,000. After the release the disc was sold out in a few weeks due to the high international demand. His singles "Speed F*cks" and "Punk vs Metal" have been covered by several guitar players around the world. In 2011, Charlie wrote music for the UK gaming commentator TotalBiscuit, Call of Duty figure Sandy Ravage and Swiss game commentator Diablox9.

After the breakup of Difonía, Charlie continued on with Oliver and Jeremy Castillo and performed some shows playing tracks from the album "Procrastination / Procrastination".

Charlie has continued his solo career even after joining Kobra and the Lotus. His latest album is a collaboration with Oliver and Jeremy Castillo and is called "Organic I". It was released on November 17, 2013. In January 2014, Charlie traveled to France to record guitars for french project "The Lost Rockers".

In 2012, Charlie announced he was not playing with Difonía anymore to focus on his next solo release, but instead joined the Canadian heavy metal band Kobra and the Lotus in the beginning of their European tour with Steel Panther, playing in Finland, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. After that, they toured United Kingdom supporting Buckcherry and Sonata Arctica in United States. The band toured again in 2013 supporting Fear Factory for 50 dates. Charlie parted ways with Kobra and the Lotus in 2014 after Amaranthe's first North American headlining tour.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Parra_del_Riego, YouTube