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I
believe I owe my ability to sing
and hear harmony by singing along to all those Beatles & Stones songs and maybe
some Beach Boys tunes as a pre-teen from 1968 to 1970. I
can remember playing an old cheap acoustic flat on my lap and sounding out bass
notes to "Stepin' Stone" by the Monkee's, by pressing my thumb
flat on the fretboard.
My influences
as a teen started with most album-oriented rock such as Aerosmith, Led
Zeppelin, Lynard Skynard & Foghat. I became a big Alice Cooper fan and
even a bigger Kiss fan, dressing up and even covering some of their music
in some of the basement bands I helped develop. Deep Purple, The Eagles,
Black Sabbath and AC/DC all helped develop my playing style for both
guitar & bass. My attention turned as I discovered the music of Yes,
Genesis, Heart, Rush, Queen, King Crimson and my all time favorite still
to this day, Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Playing in bars where I grew up in
the early 80's meant covering Joe Jackson, Graham Parker, U2, Sex
Pistols & David Bowie.
Things slowed down in the
mid 80's for me as I married and became a father. But I continued to
play fusion and even country-rock in the early 90's while developing a
taste for alternative rock, which led to my discovery of music like Nine
Inch Nails, Sound Garden, Green Day, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Guns & Roses,
Metallica, Stone Temple Pilots and my all time favorite Alice In Chains.
These days I like selections from Godsmack, Disturbed, Puddle Of Mudd,
Fuel, Train, Korn, Staind and Tool.
I currently use a Parker Fly classic
with the built in Fishman acoustic bridge and a Fernandez Revolver
sustainer with Floyd Rose locking tremolo system. Both guitars are
set up with the Roland GK-2A pick-ups that drive the Roland GR-30 guitar
synthesizer. I use D'Addario XL strings gauged .10 to .46.
For amplification I have a pair of
Peavey bandits that I like to run in stereo from the Digitech RP-2000 that
I use for guitar processing. A signal flex A-B switch allows
me to go from a subtle chorused Parker acoustic to a full blown out
Marshall or Mesa Boogie in an instant!
When I'm playing bass, I use a 5-string Fender
Jazz model that is active and has the extra mid boost potentiometer
through a Hartke model 7000 bass amp with a variety of speaker cabinets by
Ampeg or Peavey to utilize any combination of ten inch speakers from 2 to
14, depending on the size of the venue and the coverage required. I'll use
the D'Addario EXL170-5SL strings but prefer the SW3000 slowounds.
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