At the age of 8, little Sergio Buss picked up a guitar in his home town of Joinville, Brazil, and learned to play by ear. In 1992 Sergio moved to Los Angeles to study at the Guitar Institute of Technology, where he was featured in the SPOTLIGHT section of Guitar Player magazine (Nov. 94). Guitar Player said, "Sergio displays an intuitive, soulful melodic sense and a singing lead voice that owes much to the Vai school of double-coil sustain and the Page book of blues bending." When Sergio graduated GIT, he remained in L.A. to enroll in the Recording Institute of Technology. Toward the end of his course of study, he met guitar virtuoso @Steve Vai and began working for him as an intern. Steve later offered Sergio a job as an assistant engineer. He worked with Steve on the CDs Alien Love Secrets and Fire Garden, and he traveled with Steve as a member of his touring company, playing guitar in a few shows on the Alien Love Secrets Tour. In 1996, Sergio returned to Brazil, where he was inspired to start working on his own album, Incarcerated Scream, which got rave reviews from the Brazilian music press. In an interview for Cover Guitarra magazine (#30), Steve Vai said, "I can honestly say that this is one of the most interesting records I've ever heard . . . certainly the best of the year.”