Joey Santiago is a Filipino-American guitarist and composer working in the alternative rock genre, born on June 10, 1965, in Manila.

Santiago received his secondary education at Longmeadow High School and then at Wilbraham & Monson Academy. He subsequently attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, extending his educational formation into higher learning. These institutions represent the academic arc through which he passed before establishing himself as a musician.

As a guitarist and composer, Santiago has operated within the alternative rock genre throughout his career. His dual role places him in the position of both performer and creator, engaged with the musical and compositional dimensions of his work. His birth in Manila and his citizenship in the United States together define the Filipino-American identity that characterizes his biography, one that bridges two distinct national and cultural contexts.

The recurring coordinates of Santiago's professional life are his work as a guitarist, his practice as a composer, and his sustained engagement with alternative rock as his chosen genre. Born in 1965 and educated through institutions he attended in sequence from secondary school through university, he has carried those formative experiences into a career defined by the guitar and the compositional process. His identity as a Filipino-American artist, grounded in a Manila birthplace and shaped by education and citizenship in the United States, remains a defining feature of who he is as a musician working within the alternative rock form.