About Me
I started off playing guitar when I was around 11 years old. From that point on it has been a major part of my life.
I grew up with bands like the Beatles, CS&N, Santana, the Police... and then was introduced to hard rock when I was about 12-13. Van Halen, Iron Maiden and so on.
My first proper band from High School, Heartless Wager made the jump from the basement to clubs fairly quickly and in no time we had quite a following and our self-produced EP was on the radio. We were signed to a development deal and then unfortunately the wheels came off. Some bad luck and a change musical style, namely grunge, spelled the end. It was an invaluable experience and I learned a lot about songwriting, band dynamics, the business side of things and what to do (and more importantly what NOT to do) in the music/entertainment world.
Shortly after that I started a 3-piece playing music closer to my heart, called Project Wilson. Purely on good will and momentum from Wager we soon found ourselves planning gigs, some radio spots and the future looked promising. After a gig at a college in PA I decided to call it a day - as I wanted to explore other things in life other than music.
Fast forward 10 years later, and my wife Daniela encouraged me to get back into music. Wager had two reunions and I slowly started getting back into it - but it would be another 10 years or so - if not more - before I started playing live again, this time with These Certain People.
In TCP we've played some big festivals here in England (Rewind, Pennfest, FiFest and Pub in the Park as well as smaller ones too, pub and club gigs.
Influences
Influences
The first band I recall hearing was the Beatles - Day Tripper to be precise - and to this day they're probably my favourite band. I firmly believe that anything you need to know about music you can learn from studying their recordings. Songwriting, production, experimentation - it is all there.
I'm more of a melody guy than I am a shredder. My favourite guitarists are those who can be identified after one or two notes and play memorable melodies - artists like Carlos Santana, Brian May, Tom Scholz. Add to that Edward Van Halen, who combined melody with chops, insane rhythm skills, tone and sheer joyfulness in his playing.
As everyone loves a list these days, here is a list of my biggest musical influences - not just guitarists! No surprises here though, I'm a rock guy
- Carlos Santana (especially his mid '70s jazz fusion era)
- Brian May
- Edward Van Halen
- Andy Summers
- Michael Lockwood
- Ed King
- Jon Brion
- Gary Moore
- The Edge
- Jim Heath (Reverend Horton Heat)
- George Lynch
- Aimee Mann - huge fan of her songwriting
- XTC
- Dean Deleo
- David Grissom
