Scott Middleton was born October 1, 1981 and grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada (which is a suburb of Toronto). He is currently the guitarist of the band “Cancer Bats”.
Scott started playing guitar at 11 years old after hearing Metallica’s Black album. While at a garage sale, he begged his dad to buy him a Japanese SG copy and a Fender amp for $50, which Scott’s dad agreed. Scott then took lessons for about a year, which he studied a little bit of improv jazz as well as classical guitar in high school. He was self taught from then on.
Scott joined his first serious band at the age of 17. The band was an industrial-rock called “Bitter Fall”. From there he joined a post-hardcore band called “Upended”, which he later got kicked out for “writing too many metal riffs”. He then started the “Euro Metal” influenced metalcore band called “At the Mercy of Inspiration”, which took Scott on his first real tours across the US and Canada. After that he went to a recording and producing school, which he recorded a demo for his (at the time) side project called “Cancer Bats”. The demo he produced got “Cancer Bats” signed to a record label; they’ve been recording and touring since 2005.
Scott’s main guitar influences consisted of a variety of guitarists. They include: J from “White Zombie”, Robb Flynn of “Machine Head”, John Christ of “Danzig”, Pepper Keenan and Woody Weatherman of “Corrosion of Conformity”, Kenny Hickey of “Type O Negative”, Andreas Kisser and Max Cavalera of “Sepultura”, Tony Iommi of “Black Sabbath”, Dimebag Darrell of “Pantera”, Tom Morello of “Rage Against the Machine”, Alex Hellid and Uffe Cederlund of Entombed, as well as Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax (whom are now more commonly known as the “Big 4”).
Scott uses a variety of gear which include: An 1987 Gibson LP Custom Lite guitar, 2007 Custom First Act Sheena guitar, (both include EMG 81 active pickups), Scott Dixon Guitar Trolley Cases, GHS Lowtune Boomer (53-11) strings, Dunlop Tortex (.73mm) picks, Diezel Herbert and Morris Custom XSIII amps as well as 2 Diezel front loaded 4X12 guitar cabs with Celestion V30 and Diezel Eminence speakers, and Planet Waves Instrument & Speaker Cables and Tuners. His basic pedal setup consists of Moley Steve Vai Bad Horsie Wah, ISP Decimator G String, Providence Chrono Delay, Providence Stamplede OD, Providence Sonic Drive, VOX Ice 9 Overdrive, Blackstar HT-OD, Radial Texas Bones, Rocktron Cottonmouth Fuzz, Cusack Music Scruzz, Electro Harmonix POG 2, Providence Patch Cables, and a Providence PEC-2 Pedalboard Routing System.