About this event
Sophie Lloyd is a trailblazer who is redefining the concept of a “bedroom” guitarist. A talented composer and accomplished musician, Sophie graduated from BIMM in 2018 with a First Class Honours BMus in Popular Music Performance. Her hard work ethic has seen her go from a content creator to building an audience in the millions, and playing some of the world’s biggest stages as guitarist for multi platinum recording artist Machine Gun Kelly. Through her viral “shredleys”, covers and her own original material, Sophie has amassed the kind of following that even the guitar gods she grew up idolizing would be envious of, with a reach surpassing 180 million views on YouTube and over 4 million followers across her social channels. In addition to her own content, Sophie’s talent and popularity has led to collaborations with household name brands such as Amazon Prime, Ubisoft, Hard Rock Café, Bar S Foods and Blizzard Gaming, including solo live performances for World Rugby and a stunning performance at Paris Fashion Week for Redemption Brand Clothing. Sophie also created a guitar course for digital learning platform Truefire, contributing to a program that houses some of six strings' most prestigious names including Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Marty Friedman and Jennifer Batten, to name a few. She has also released her own signature guitar, becoming the first female artist to do so for exclusive Californian Guitar maker KIESEL after launching one of the fastest selling “Artist Series” guitars in the company’s history. From 2022, Sophie could be seen shredding on stage touring globally as guitarist for Machine Gun Kelly, taking on his Mainstream Sellout World Tour, sold out shows at legendary venues such Madison Square Garden in New York and Wembley Arena in London, Cleveland Stadium, festivals such as Lollapalooza, Hellfest, Rock Am Ring, Rock Im Park, and huge sporting events in the NBA and NFL. While shredding for MGK, Sophie has also shared the stage with collaborators such as Halsey, Jelly Roll, Yungblud, Oli Sykes and Travis Barker. Sophie released her debut solo album in November 2023, a completely independent endeavour via her own Autumn Records label. Recorded during the covid lockdown, Sophie reached out to some of her heroes to collaborate, on boarding names such as Lzzy Hale (Halestorm), Matt Heafy (Trivium), Chris Robertson (Black Stone Cherry), Brandon Saller (Atreyu) and Nathan James (Inglorious). The album received rave reviews, hitting number 3 in the rock charts and 11 in the independent albums chart on week of release, with the music videos for the album receiving over 8.6 million views and counting. Most recently, Sophie has set her sights on the live element of her solo career. Having sold out her debut headline show at London’s Camden Underworld in October 2024 – an upgrade from the originally scheduled Camden Assembly which sold out in minutes – Sophie started 2025 with her first ever US solo appearance, packing out the world famous Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood. Taking place against the backdrop of the awful fires that had destroyed parts of LA, Sophie turned the event into something of a benefit show, raising over $1000 for the LAFD Fund and auctioning off one of her signature Kiesel guitars from the show, raising a further $7300 for the Pasadena Humane Society. It is rare to see such a young guitarist with such a storied history, having already added ticks next to what for many would be bucket list achievements. But these are merely the opening chapters, and readers should make no mistake – Sophie Lloyd is just getting started.
