I grew up in suburban New Jersey, but never met Springsteen or Bon Jovi, nor am I related to Carla Bruni (first lady of France), as far as I know? My first band was in a basement in my hometown of Hamilton N.J., where we played mostly cover songs by The Cars, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and other famous rock bands from the 70's. The next band I was in was in was called Squealing Dead Things. A sort of Zappa-esc mish-mash of 80's type music, if you can imagine that? Following the break-up of The Squealing Dead Things I formed a band with my friends from the record store I worked in, and Funkaphobia was hatched. That's with an umlaut over the "u". Funkaphobia was and still is a highly creative group of individuals. They collectively have more knowledge of general music facts than any other people I know on the planet. Funkaphobia is and will remain the most original band on Earth. Later, I also played in a band called Falling Man. I played in Falling Man with a guy that was one of my guitar students, James Murphy. He's in a band called LCD Soundsystem now. Falling Man put out a record called "A Christening". I'm not sure what Jim meant by that title, but it wasn't really a religious reference, as far as I could tell? It was somehow "Goth"? E. William Tucker aka "Billy Tucker", a well known and respected musician/producer also from New Jersey produced Jim's record. Billy was a friend of mine, and I took some guitar lessons from him early on. I miss Bill's sarcasm and wit, and he was one of the best musicians I'd ever known. Unfortuanely Billy took his own life in 1999. I'd also like to mention Ernie White, and Joe Federico as guitar influences. Two great local guitarists that need to be congratulated on their dedication to music and the art of playing guitar. These two guys helped me put the pieces together as far as my guitar playing is concerned.

I moved to California in the 90's and played in numerous bands. My first California band experience was with a cover band called Shane's -Ex. Shane's -Ex was a great cover band but also played original songs as well, and was a local favorite at Jose Murphy's in San Diego. Later I moved to Los Angeles and started my own band called The Big Field, which was a three-piece power trio. I played guitar and was the front man for the band, providing all the original songs. Dan Arciniega played bass for most of the Big Field days. Nick Tidy of Ethnic Robot provided the live drums and was a founding member. People often said my voice sounded like Jim Morrison of The Doors in those days. The Big Field was a great band, playing numerous gigs in Los Angeles, and worked with Warren Cann of the band Ultravox as producer for a short time. Nick Tidy left the band to start his own project and was replaced by Bob Patrowicz on drums. The Big Field recorded an E.P. which was never finished, but some songs were masteted and used in the film "Lloyd". After the demise of The Big Field I briefly pursued a career as a producer, landing an Engineering gig at 4th Street Recording in Santa Monica. I was mentored by Jim Wirt who is a famous producer in his own right, producing such bands as; Incubus, Hoobastank, Live, and Something Corporate to name a few. I worked at 4th Street Recording for three years. I was able to engineer for some really cool bands, like No Doubt, Gingersol, Michael Penn, and Human Drama. I left 4th Street eventually to get back into playing music full time. In 2004 I produced the dynamic R&B artist, Bashirrah, and played guitar in the band as well as co-writing songs. Evnetually I left Bashirrah's project to start my own band, again, this time as a solo artist.

My musical influences include : Neil Young, The Beatles, Nick Drake, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, U2, Elvis Costello, Pink Floyd, The Police, Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, The Clash, XTC, The Cars, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Blind Faith, Harry Nilsson, The Replacements, The Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Frank Zappa, The Smiths, Bruce Springsteen, Badfinger, Leonard Cohen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Santana, and the list goes on...