BIO

True confessions...

Unlike many of my fellow drum contemporaries, my foray into the world of drums almost didn’t happen. Growing up as a youth, consumed by the power of Rock music in the late 1970’s into the early 1980’s... I didn’t aspire to be the guy onstage, stuck towards the back. My original goal in life was to be a famous guitar player. (GASP!) As it turned out, though... I was a novice guitar player (intermediate, at best.) and, being among a plethora of other kids my age who were playing guitar at a much higher level...I relented that my skills were more than likely not going to advance beyond that of a basic rhythm guitarist. I had two mutual guitar player friends in my old neighborhood (named Josh and Aaron) whom I would occasionally “jam” with from time to time. One particular day, in the summer of ‘92... I was roughly 15 years old, when I received a phone call from Aaron, asking if I’d be interested in coming over to Josh’s place to “jam”? It just so happened that I was sitting at home, bored and I figured, “Why not?” So, I strapped my White Fender/Squier Stratocaster onto my back & lugged my 60’s era Fender Deluxe Reverb Tube Amp (that probably weighed more than I did...not to mention - NO casters. ugh.) and slowly made the long, grueling, 4 block trek to Josh’s house. Little did I know, that my budding career as a guitar player would come to an abrupt end that day, as a befuddled Aaron met me at the front door, only to say... “...ohh. Umm, no. We don’t want you to play guitar...we want you to play drums.” Perplexed, I peered into the basement jam room to see a 60’s era ROGER’S 4-piece drum kit, in a black oyster wrap, sitting in the corner. One of the more memorable “charms” of the drum kit were two 70’s era LUDWIG Clear Vistalite 12” & 13” Concert Toms that were noticeably jimmy-rigged onto the mounted cymbal stand affixed to the Bass Drum. (completing a “3 rack, one floor” set-up.) The cymbals that draped overhead were some unknown German made brand that were equivalent to trash can lids & sounded like they were screaming “Du Hast!” when you hit ‘em. ...it was QUITE a beautiful disaster of a kit! For as little as I knew back then, the prized quality that “vintage drums” of this caliber had...it wasn’t the type of kit that exactly matched the Heavy/Thrash/Death Metal music we were jamming to. But, alas, it was an ACTUAL set of drums. The looming problem in the room now began to arise, as reality was sinking in to the fact that I had NEVER even touched a pair of sticks, let alone, sat behind a set of drums in my life up ‘til that point. I looked over with an inquisitive stare to Josh & Aaron and asked the million dollar question… what would make you think of ME as being a drummer??? Apparently, my penchant for doing blast beats on the cafeteria table in the lunchroom of our high school was enough of a barometer & provided enough confidence to both of them that I would, at the very least, know how to “keep a beat”

...it’s been a 30+ year odyssey ever since that day.