Biography

Originally born in Vienna, Austria on May 10th on Mother's Day Milan grew up and lived in a lot of different places all over the world such as Korea, Kenya, Saudi-Arabia, Germany, Italy & U.S.A. which gave him the opportunity to get in touch with a lot of different cultures and musical styles.

Of course, this experience had a major impact on his view of this world as well as his music. The only problem he had to face time and again was that to survive as a musician in his country you either have to be a prostitute or produce crap which both just wasn't his thing. They say that if you want to become famous in Austria you either have to die or leave the country - well, Milan wasn't ready to die yet... So, he decided to move to Germany.

Milan has always wanted to be a musician. Originally, he wanted to become a drummer but never got a drum set because his parents said it was too expensive and that he didn't have any musical talent anyway. So, he began playing the guitar when he was about 13 but the love for grooves remained just the same. He had a song book called "Beatles Complete" and that's how he learned strumming the first few chords on an acoustic guitar. He also grew up listening to guitarists like Al Di Meola & Paco De Lucia as well as a lot of classical music. And having a natural ear helped him to progress at a fast pace.
Soon he got his first electric guitar and got into AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Van Halen. Then a friend turned him on to Randy Rhoads and after hearing him, Milan knew that he wanted to become a serious guitarist.

He spent hours trying to figure out Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert and Randy Rhoads solos by ear (yes, at that time there were no instructional books or videos available, so he had to do it the old-fashioned way) and must have worn out a couple of tape decks.

In 1985, after two years of serious playing, Milan started to get into the local scene and got himself a name. Local Magazines started to call him "the most talented guitarist of Austria".

After high school he attended the "Schubert Jazz conservatory" but left after a few months because things were not moving fast enough for him. Around the same time Jazz guitarist Les Wise opened up the "American Institute of Music", the European pendant to MI & Berklee College. There he went on to study jazz/fusion with Wayne Brasel and was one of the first students to receive a professional diploma in Feb. 1991.


Milan's demos started to create some interest and he received a lot of kind feedback from various magazines and books like "The Modern Guitarist" by Matt Williams. Around that time he also sent a tape to John Stix of "Guitar for the Practicing Musician" who reviewed it and featured Milan in his column "Resume" in Dec. 1990.

In 1991 Milan also accepted an offer to teach at A.I.M. and became co-head of the rock department until the school closed down in 1995. There he met some cool musicians like Rich Kern, Lale Larson, Todd Duane, Joey Tafolla, Shawn Lane, Deen Castronovo, Frank Gambale a.m.o.

Around that time Milan used to hang out at the local rock club a lot and got the chance to jam with people like Jeff Waters of "Annihilator", Dimebag Darrell of "Pantera" and Dizzy & Matt Sorum of "Guns n' Roses" who all came to that club after their concerts.

In Feb. of 1993 Mark Varney released the third CD of the series "Guitar On the Edge – the World's Hottest Guitarists" which featured Milan's tune "Where Were You Tomorrow?". It was followed by the release of No. 4 in 1994 featuring "Absolutely Positive".

The next two years Milan spent teaching, doing studio & live gigs, playing at music fairs and writing & recording songs for both his solo career and his band "New World", a four piece band that sounded like a mixture of "Dream Theater" & "Pantera".

In 1994 he signed a record deal with "Rock the Nation" for "New World" and a solo album, two CD's were released in 1995 – "Guitar 2001" & "Changing Times", which both received very good reviews all over Europe. Unfortunately, the record company had some financial problems and "New World" broke up frustrated.

On the 12th of July 1995 Milan played with the band "Tangerine Dream" in Los Angeles at the SIR Theater to present their release "Tyranny of Beauty".

Between 1995 and 1997 he had the great opportunity to meet and play with some of the world's greatest musicians such as Billy Sheehan ("Mr. Big" & Steve Vai), jazz bassist Steve Bailey, Marty Friedman ("Megadeth") and Ken Hensley of "Uriah Heep".

In 1996 Milan played guitars for a musical called "Blondel" and recorded a CD with Austrian songwriter Sigi Maron called "Raps und Rübsen".

In the year of 1997 he became the guitarist of Falco, Austria's only internationally successful pop star up to date who even had a No.1 smash-hit in the U.S. billboard-charts called "Rock me Amadeus". Falco had been looking for a guitarist for about a year and just prepared to go to England because he was convinced that he could not find a suitable guitarist anywhere else anymore.
A mutual friend recommended Milan and Falco gave him a shot just the evening before he flew to London. It was love at first sight and Falco started to introduce Milan to people as his new guitarist before he had even seen him play just because he had listened to the songs "Dreamscapes" & "Spanish Romance".

The next morning he still left to London for about three weeks saying that if he could not find a better guitarist there, Milan would have the job. These three weeks became some of the most exciting times in Milan's life... Tragically, the collaboration quickly came to an end when Falco died in a car accident on the 6th of February in 1998.
That same year the instructional series "Guitar Heroes – Real Technique" was also released. Milan had started to write it in 1997 as a product of his intense teaching experience. A Falco-CD called "Verdammt, Wir Leben Noch" was released in 1999 featuring Milan on the song "Poison".

The year of 2000 was heavily occupied by a project called the "Falco cybershow" – a huge event that combined elements of a rock concert with elements of musical plus technical madness such as water walls, laser show, etc. A CD with the O.S.T. was released the same year.

In 2001 Milan was asked to join forces with Haddaway, a relict of the dance scene of the 90ies, who once had a big hit called "What Is Love" and was trying to re-launch his career. A concert at "Stars & Bars" in Monaco followed as well as the CD "My Face", which was also Milan's first job as an international producer.

2002 saw Milan getting back more to the "guitar-hero-thing" again when he turned in the instrumentals "Sometimes I still miss you" for an album called "The Alchemists" (Liquid Note Records) as well as "Utopia" for the Jason Becker tribute "Warmth In The Wilderness Vol. II" (Lion Music), which also featured great musicians such as Steve Vai, Marty Friedman, Randy Coven a.m.o.

In 2003 Milan was involved in the two productions "Mit Grosser Sorge" by De Luca and the Falco cover version "Rock Me Amadeues" by Missterious which entered Austrian and Swiss Top Ten-charts, before relocating to Hamburg, Germany in July.

He had also started to work on the project album "J.A.M." featuring the great talents of Alessandro Benvenuti and Joel Rivard. This was interrupted by Milan's relocation to Germany in July 2003 and was finished in his new studio in Hamburg.

"J.A.M." was released in May 2004 and received great acclaim worldwide including 'Album of the Month', a no. 2 chart position in the Jazzwise UK charts and 'best overall selling CD' at guitar9.com.

Milan also started to work on a crossover project with the renowned classical violin player Lidia Baich which was never finalized, unfortunately. Excerpts can be found in the music section.

In March 2005 the renowned label Lion Music released Milan's long awaited 2nd solo CD "Dreamscapes" worldwide followed by "Guitar Odyssey" in October 2005, which is a re-mastered version of the sold out CD "Guitar 2001" featuring an extra bonus track. Both CD's received raving reviews from magazines all over the world which can be found in the discography section.


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But by this time Milan had already started to write new songs taking a step into another direction. Realizing that playing instrumental guitar music only offers limited possibilities, he decided to write songs with lyrics and vocals to reach a wider audience. By the end of 2005 he got together with drummer John Macaluso & bassist Randy Coven and flew to NY to record his next album called 'Straight' featuring Milan on vocals & guitar. Both additional recordings including bassist Fabio Trentini as well as mixing took place in 2006. The result received great feedback by both fans & press and the pre-release CD made it into one of the 'Top 10 albums of 2006' lists of the Dutch magazine File Under ranking at no. 3. By the end of 2006 Milan signed a contract with Lion Music to release "Straight" world-wide in April 2007.
"Straight" received a lot of great feedback including "Album of the Month", "Top 10 Albums of the Year", "Top 30 releases of 2007" and Milan was voted "Best Guitarist of 2007". Also the song "The Glowing Of A Cigarette" was voted no. 2 of the "Top 200 songs of 2007" charts by the renowned Fireworks Magazine, UK.

Around April/May of 2007 Milan was also asked to help the German gold-selling act Subway To Sally with their next album. Milan co-wrote 10 songs and played all the acoustic & electric guitars on the album "Bastard" which entered the German album charts at 7. In spring 2008 the band won the German Bundesvision Song Contest with their song "Auf Kiel" which Milan Polak co-wrote.
In the meantime Milan had started to write & record demos for his next album.

Studies:
- Selftaught Rockguitarist
- Schubert Jazz Conservatory, Vienna
- Jazz / Fusion at the American Institute of Music (Professional Diploma)

Gigs & Livejams:
- w/ Jeff Waters (Annihilator) and Dimebag Darrell (Pantera) - Feb 91
- w/ Members of Guns'n Roses - Summer 92
- w/ Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big) - Mar 95
- w/ Tangerine Dream (including appearance on "Good Morning, America!") - USA, Jul 95
- w/ Jazzbassist Steve Bailey - Mar 96
- w/ Marty Friedman (Megadeth) and Ken Hensley (Uriah Heep) - Mar 97
- w/ Falco - Lauda Gala - Dec 97
- "Tribute to Jimi Hendrix" - Euromusic-Fair - Sept 99

Activities & Engagements:
- Co-Head of Rockdept. of the American Institute of Music - 1991-95
- 1st european guitarist in "Guitar for the practicing musician" - Dec 90
- Rotterdam "Ahoi" Musicfair - Sep 93
- Frankfurt Musicfair - Mar 94
- Frankfurt Musicfair - Mar 95
- Roland Austria-Tour - May 95
- Musical "Blondel" - Austria, Jul-Aug 96
- Jingle Productions (Persil, Silan...)
- Universum - "Land des Eisens"
- Musical Director for "Tohuwabohu-Live" - March-May 98
- F@lco-Cybershow 2000

CDs:
- 1st european Guitarist on M. Varney's
  "Guitar on the Edge - the world's hottest guitarists", Vol. 1 No 3 - Feb 93
- "Guitar on the Edge - the world's hottest guitarists", Vol. 1 No 4 - Feb 94
- "Changing Times"/New World (RTN) - Jan 95
- "Guitar 2001" Solo (RTN) - Jun 95
- "Raps und Rübsen"/Sigi Maron - 1996
- "Verdammt wir leben noch"/Falco - 1999
- "F@lco - A Cybershow" (O.S.T.) - 2000
- "My Face"/Haddaway - 2001
- "The Alchemists" - 2002
- "Warmth In The Wilderness Vol. II" - 2002
- "Mit Grosser Sorge"/De Luca – 2003
- "Rock Me Amadeusquot;/Missterious - 2003
- "J.A.M." - 2004
- "Dreamscapes" (Lion Music) - 2005
- "Coincidences"/Last Acoustic (Azzurra Music) - 2005
- "Guitar Odyssey" (Lion Music) - 2005
- "Straight" (Lion Music) - 2007
- "Bastard"/Subway To Sally (Nuclear Blast) - 2007

Books:
- Guitar Heroes - "Real Technique" (Universal Edition)
- Guitar Heroes - "Real Fretboard Harmony" (not yet released)