MY STORY

It all starts this way: I was born on the west side of Columbus, Ohio. My earliest memories are of my family spinning vinyl. Rock and Roll, R&B and, later, the Blues. It all started with the rhythm and the beat. I felt it in my bones. Starting at five years old, my best friend and I would spend hours listening to his older brother play the drums to whatever came up next on the radio. On the weekends one good groove could almost instantly turn a small gathering into a block party. At least that’s how it seemed. 

In 1976, when I was ten, I saw my first concert. It was Kiss’s Destroyer Tour. Unbelievable. On the back of the Kiss Alive album, it says, “Kiss uses Gibson guitars, Marshall amplifiers, and Pearl drums because they want the nothing best.” That always stuck with me. Around this time, I had saved up enough money to buy my first used drum kit. I bought it from my sister’s babysitter’s boyfriend for $110.00. I practiced for hours every day. The neighbors hated me for good reason. Determined to upgrade, I got a job at a pizza shop. I went in before school, cleaned up, then flipped dough before I left. I earned a whopping $7.00 a day. It eventually landed me a customized Pearl drum kit. 

Finally, the summer I was fourteen, I played my first house party, followed by my first bar gig. The lead guitarist and singer was, at sixteen, the eldest of the group. We called ourselves Thin Ice, and we had an original song by the same name. The lyrics went, “Slip sliding on thin ice/ gonna turn around and do it right!” If I only knew then, what I know now. 

Walking distance from my house was a place called Coyle Music. The salesmen all played in bands and understood how music addiction worked. They let me hang out there and mess around with whatever I wanted. Around the corner, in the same strip mall, was a huge discotheque called the Dixie Electric Company. Monday night was teen night. Live music for huge crowds of teenagers. Brilliant! The first show I caught was the Dixie Dregs, I didn’t know the music, but they were good. I also caught some great local bands, Black Leather Touch and The Muff Bros., both from the QFM 96 hometown album. The radio station held a contest every year and the top ten local bands made it on the record. 

That’s when I had a great idea. I would become a roadie. I already knew how to set up drums and hook up guitar equipment. In no time, I was the stage manager for the best band in my neighborhood. They were called Thunder Page (They later changed their name to The Roxx.) They opened for the most popular bands at the best rock club in town, the Alrosa Villa. Unfortunately, years later the Alrosa became known as the place that Dimebag Darrel from the band Pantara was shot and killed. Terrible. 

My very first soundcheck at Alrosa Villa was when it happened -- the first time I ever heard the sound up close, a wall of dimmed Marshall stacks. Nothing would ever be the same. It completely changed my life. Drums had never given me goosebumps! 

After I set up the gear, I watched the 45-minute show, then I tore it down and stayed to watch the headliner. No one ever asked me to leave. I saw everyone: The Almighty Strut. The Grimm Bros, and Bob Seger’ s Mark Chatfield, the guitarist from The Godz, and his new band Rosie. Every great band in the area played there on rotation, so I got to see them multiple times. They also brought in national groups, such as Pat Travers, Ted Nugent, Robin Trower, and Rick Derringer. Great Rock and Roll, up close and free of charge, and I wasn’t even old enough to get in! 

I started going to big concerts. I went to every show that I could: Judas Priest, The Scorpions, Black Sabbath, Foghat, Molly Hatchet, Def Leppard, UFO, Rush, Cheap Trick, Blackfoot, Iron Maiden, Bon Jovi, Dio, etc. I saw AC/DC two years in a row. Highway to Hell with Bon Scott. Back in Black with Brian Johnson. The Who in 1979. Needless to say, the bar was set pretty high. I wouldn’t trade my midwestern Rock and Roll education for anything. 

At home, when it got too late to play the drums, I started picking up my friends’ guitars. There were always lying around because, for obvious practical reasons, it usually works out that the band rehearses at the drummer’s house. The guitar came naturally to me. I often saw other people struggling with fingering a chord or having trouble with the timing of a riff, but, right from the start, it was almost second nature to me. 

By the time I was sixteen, I had sold my drums and switched to guitar full time. (A Gibson and a Marshall) With me on guitar, my new high school band, Asylum, played anywhere and everywhere -- bars, backrooms, keg parties, even six shows in one day at the Ohio State Fair. We started renting out venues, printing our own tickets and posters, and selling out our shows. 

Soon after that, my next band, Lace, won a local Rock Wars competition sponsored by QFM 96, the top rock radio station in town. The prize was free time in the best local recording studio. It was a two-inch tape in a giant room with a big analog console. Super cool. The recording became my next addiction. Soon, with Lace, I was making a living playing music, some original but mostly with cover tunes. We toured the Midwest, and then we went all the way to Texas and back where we played alongside a new band called Poison. But after a few road long trips, Lace fell apart. Funny how success can do that to a band. 

I joined an established group, Money, that played in a different town every week. They had their own P.A., lights, sound man, and road crew, all inside their own big truck. It was a whole lot of fun and the stage experience that came from it was invaluable. One night after we had just finished playing five nights at a club in Louisville called The Toy Tiger, the band broke up. A huge fight between the singer and the drummer. Classic. 

Everyone dispersed but me. I stayed for a girl, someone special I had met on and off over the past few months. She mentioned a local band she really liked. A week later, I found myself in a super talented, all-original band, called Spanky Lee. They could all sing, they wrote their own songs, and they owned a 16-track studio. My first gig with them was downtown in front of 7,000 people. We recorded some music and got some interest in Nashville. We were hooked up with an engineer that had recorded Elvis. Off to Nashville to record some more. 

After about a year in Kentucky, I got the call to fly to Los Angeles to play with Pete Way of UFO. His new band, Wasted, needed a guitar player. I flew into Burbank, got picked up by a limo, and went straight to the rehearsal hall. Motley Crue was in the next room getting things together for the Girls, Girls, Girls tour. They had the entire live stage rig set up in this giant room and were going at it full volume. It was awesome. 

Later that night, Pete took me out to the world famous Rainbow Bar and Grill on the Sunset Strip to meet up with his friend, Ace Frehley. You might have heard of him from the band Kiss. After dinner, we closed down the bar, then went back to the Oakwoods, where the record companies put up all the bands, and had an impromptu acoustic jam. Mick Mars from Motley Crue, Ace Frehley from Kiss, Pete Way from UFO, and me, playing until daybreak. Mind-blowing. 

I decided to stay in Los Angeles and form a new band with some friends from a band called Sweet Savage. We called ourselves Pal Joey, and we were a powerhouse. We immediately inked a big-money publishing deal and started making a record. I fell in love with Southern California. Palm trees, beaches, beautiful weather, and gorgeous women everywhere. 

In 1987, Los Angeles was the place to be for a 21-year-old guitar man in a rock and roll band. Guns and Roses were playing gigs at The Whisky and the Roxy, and hanging out at the Cat House in Hollywood. This is when the rest of the world still hadn’t heard of them. 

Soon, my new band was called Mad Moxie. After we had sold out all the clubs on the Sunset Strip, Enigma Records offered us a record deal. On top of that, we were lucky to catch the ear of the world-renown producer and engineer Andy Johns, who had recorded The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Free, Humble Pie, and Jimi Hendrix, to name just a few. Andy often told me that my playing and my tone reminded him of the late, great Paul Kossoff from the band Free. I considered this a tremendous compliment. 

Hanging out with Andy offered me incredible insight into my favorite rockers, especially Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend, and Jimi Hendrix. I got to spend countless hours with the man that recorded Exile on Main St. and Led Zeppelin 4. Andy knew the secrets -- the riffs, the guitars, the amps, the settings, the microphones, the placements, the tunings, and the stories. I absorbed it all like a sponge. It changed me, both as a musician and as a fan. I ended up forming a new band called The Shakes. 

Throughout all my years in the music business, I have been signed by Criterion Publishing, Enigma Records, Capitol Records, and Zoo Records, and yet not one of my bands ever released a record. One thing or another always got in the way and that was that. I won’t go into the politics of everything, but I have a notion that I can’t shake that if it had all gone down differently, somehow I wouldn’t be here today. Everything happens for a reason. 

The times were changing. The Seattle Sound had taken over. Plus, I was tired and not in the best of shape. I decided to take a much-needed break and move home. Back in Ohio, I started playing in a bar band with some 

good friends on weekends. I eventually became a manager at Sam Ash Music and then at The Guitar Center. I acquired several guitars, amps, a drum set or two, and studio equipment galore. I owned and operated my own studio and recorded with countless incredible musicians. After all the years, it got stale. I stopped gigging. I stopped recording other people’s music. One day, I found myself without music in my life, I didn’t even own a single guitar. I was completely miserable for about a decade. Left with no will to live, I had to do something drastic. 

So I started all over. I bought a guitar and moved back to Hollywood. As luck would have it, I moved in with the girl from Louisville. Every day, she gives me a reason to live and reminds me that I have unfinished business to attend to. Music is in my blood. If I am alive that means I am playing guitar. I’m happy with my life. I wouldn’t change a thing. 

Throughout the years I have often wondered why I was the lucky one to be put in the position to learn all these things firsthand. Now It all makes sense: I get to share everything with you!