Derek Sherinian

Derek Sherinian is one of those musicians who quietly ends up on more landmark records than you'd ever expect. I've always been fascinated by how someone who grew up in sun-soaked Laguna Beach ended up becoming one of the most technically ferocious keyboardists in prog and hard rock. His years with Dream Theater — from 1994 to 1999 — cemented his reputation, and the way he held his own alongside John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy says everything about his chops. But what impresses me most is what he built after: Planet X pushed fusion into genuinely alien territory, Black Country Communion brought classic-rock swagger with serious muscle, and Sons of Apollo put him back in a room full of virtuosos where he more than belonged. A Berklee-trained guy who never sounds academic — just heavy, inventive, and completely locked in.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Derek Sherinian

Name (Japanese)

デレク・シェリニアン

Reading

でれく・しぇりにあん

Born

August 25, 1966 (age 60)

Origin

Laguna Beach, California, United States

Occupation

musician / composer / pianist / record producer / guitarist

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Horse

High school

Soquel High School

University

Berklee College of Music

• Official sitehttps://www.dereksherinian.com
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/dereksherinianofficial/
• Xhttps://x.com/dereksherinian
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek%20Sherinian
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%87%E3%83%AC%E3%82%AF%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B7%E3%82%A7%E3%83%AA%E3%83%8B%E3%82%A2%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q335598

Tags

• California
• musician
• composer
• pianist

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.