Gary Pihl was born on November 21, 1950. His path to Boston began in Sammy Hagar’s band, where touring brought him into contact with Tom Scholz and a shared fascination with recording equipment. That connection eventually put Pihl on “I Think I Like It,” trading lead guitar parts with Scholz on Boston’s 1986 album Third Stage.
Pihl spent his early childhood in the Chicago suburbs before his family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. As a high school guitarist, he took lessons from Jerry Garcia. His father encouraged him to pursue music seriously, too. As Pihl recalled in a 2016 interview with Vortex Music Magazine, his dad drove him to a junior college in Santa Rosa to enroll. Pihl had wondered what college could offer someone interested in rock, but the teachers’ enthusiasm won him over. He took music classes, including choral singing.
Joining Hagar in 1977 brought a different kind of education. Hagar opened for Boston toward the end of their first tour, then returned for the 1978–79 tour. Pihl wanted to understand how Scholz’s stage equipment worked and how he got those guitar sounds live. Scholz answered his questions, and the two musicians stayed in touch. By the time Hagar left for Van Halen in 1985, they already had a working relationship built around music and electronics.
Scholz’s invitation to work on Third Stage initially covered one song. In a 2019 Goldmine interview, Pihl recalled that the Boston founder set up the studio equipment and trusted him to record his own guitar parts. Pihl knew how to operate the recording system, including punching in to replace a section of a performance. The assignment grew into something more permanent: after about six weeks, Scholz suggested that he move east, help finish the album and go on tour. A session call had become a place in Boston.
His work soon extended into the equipment itself. At Scholz Research & Development, Pihl was invited to try new gear being prepared for a trade show. When the engineers started modifying the circuitry, he volunteered to join them. “Well look, I know how to solder. Let me help,” he recalled in the Vortex interview. That willingness to get involved became part of his role with the band. Beyond performing, he helped build studio facilities, organized rehearsals, taught performers their parts and worked on the technical coordination of Boston’s live sound.
Pihl pursued a separate guitar identity with singer Mick Devine in The Roads. Their album Simple Man, released in 2022, paired their songwriting with shared production duties. Speaking to Goldmine that November, Pihl explained that he had built tube amplifiers for the record because he wanted a sound of his own. He also used a Leslie simulator on the title track and wah-wah on “Save You from Your Yesterdays.”
Writing together also meant trying a new starting point. For “It Will Be Alright,” Devine sent Pihl a vocal recording with no instrumental accompaniment, chord chart or specified tempo. Pihl had expected an acoustic guitar or piano guide, but accepted the challenge and worked out chords to support the melody. Devine approved the arrangement, making it the first song the two completed together.
