Rusty Anderson is an American musician best known for his work as lead guitarist for Paul McCartney's touring band since 2001. He has worked with an extensive list of other artists in addition to his own solo career.

Anderson became a professional musician at age 14 with his first band, Eulogy. Eulogy won a sizeable local following in Los Angeles, playing with bands such as the Police, Van Halen, the Runaways, Quiet Riot, Rick Derringer, Eddie Money and the Motels. Later, Anderson formed The Living Daylights, which shared the stage with Fishbone and OMD. The Living Daylights was a psychedelic/progressive rock band and Anderson's first as primary songwriter. The Living Daylights put out a record on the Greenworld Label, but subsequently disbanded when Anderson signed a solo development deal at Columbia Records.

In 1993, along with Scott Cutler and Anne Preven, Carla Azar and Paul Bushnell, Anderson formed Ednaswap. Ednaswap shared the stage with Sublime and Social Distortion, and toured as opener for No Doubt and Weezer. The band released four major label records on East West and Island Records, and penned the worldwide Number One hit song "Torn".

For his debut solo album Undressing Underwater, Anderson invited Paul McCartney to play bass and the rest of the McCartney band to sing backup vocals on the lead track, "Hurt Myself". Friend and former bandmate Stewart Copeland also came in to play drums on the song "Catbox Beach". The album was self-produced by Anderson, along with David Kahne, Mudrock and Parthenon Huxley. Undressing Underwater was originally released in late 2003 by his own Oxide Records, and re-released in September 2005 on Surfdog Records, iTunes and Amazon.

Anderson's second album Born on Earth was released October 2009. His third release was a compilation album titled Until We Meet Again, and released in the spring of 2012 with pre-release copies available during the winter 2011 leg of Paul McCartney's On the Run tour.

Anderson's 2022 solo single, "Firefly," again with Copeland on drums, was described on WAER as " neo-Bossa nova ... destined for adult contemporary radio."

Joining with his longtime collaborator, Todd O'Keefe, Anderson formed his new band, Rusty Anderson Afternoon, in 2013. O'Keefe is a Los Angeles musician known for his work with Ray Davies, Black Francis, and The 88. O'Keefe and Anderson had played together for several years in Anderson's solo group, introduced variously as "Rusty Anderson Band" and "Rusty Anderson and Friends". The band performed in cities throughout the United States, The UK and Iceland. Once Anderson and O'Keefe began sharing songwriting and lead vocal duties it was time to pick a name for the new band. A contest was held online. Fans voted for their favorite band name and the winner was "Rusty Anderson Afternoon." The brand new band was showcased at the Gibson Beverly Hills showroom debut of the Rusty Anderson Gibson ES-335 signature guitar, in coordination with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental charity.

Now officially a band, Rusty Anderson Afternoon released their first single, "Effortless", on April 30, 2013. "Effortless" made it to No. 1 at Sirius Radio's "20 on 20". The band released Rusty Anderson Afternoon II on the Oxide Records label on July 31, 2014, produced by Anderson and Paul Ratazcjack, whom Anderson worked with years earlier with the bands Soldier and The Living Daylights. The band's second single, a version of the Stewart and Gouldman song "I'm Not in Love" began in rotation on "The Blend," a Sirius radio station, in August 2014.