I grew up in a musical home and played cornet and trumpet while practicing to the sounds of Herb Alpert, my father played organ and piano, the youngest of my two sisters plays piano and harpsichord and my brother Dennis has been in a band and/or playing guitar ever since I can remember, in fact he gave me my first guitar when I was young. Dad had an electronics repair business and from the time I was 9 years old I was trouble shooting and repairing pocket radios and the like, then when I was about 12 dad started making me repair all the audio stuff that came into the shop. Dad even had a sound reinforcement business before I was born, so I come by all this musical talent naturally and even Storm's dad plays guitar and has played with Roy Clark and many other country greats from the 50's and early 60's including some of the cast members of Hee Haw before they became famous. Styles of music I have worked with include Heavy metal, Rock, Top 40, Pop, Country, Jazz, Blues, R&B, Bluegrass, Folk, Funk, Fusion Jazz, Children's music artists and solo artists. I have worked with Jim Mesi, Lydia Pense & Cold Blood, Norton Buffalo, Paul DeLay Band, Linda Hornbuckle, Chris Chandler, Donny Baldwin of Starship, Curtis Salgato, Ramblin Rex, Bob Green and Kendel Lee of Linda Carter's band. My mixing style has been compared to Billy Tripplet, my production style is heavily influenced by Pink Floyd, Rush, Chicago, The Birds and Tower of Power! As for my sound experience I just kind of fell into the position of sound tech back in 1984 after Storm and I went out to listen to my Brother Dennis's band, Freewheeling Fred, (Fred was the name of the panel they hauled equipment in) and were a cover band that also did some originals. Storm and I walked into the club, long since gone, and as we got closer I was really listening to the sound, and when they finished the song, I walked up and told Dennis that he needed to change this, this, this, this, this AND this. He looked at me a bit funny, then turned around and made all the changes I had just suggested. They went into the next song and I listened a bit and then gave him a thumbs up, the changes he made did the trick. A couple of weeks later Dennis calls and asks me if I would like to turn some knobs as he put it and told me I could do it for as long as I wanted and to just let him know. I took over running sound and lights for the band, he was lost for several months and just new he had something to do at this point or that point of the song. As my abilities grew and more attention to the sound was necessary, it was time for me to give up the lights and that's when Storm came into the picture, she took over the lights so I could concentrate on the mixing and production of the show. Members left and/or changed and vocals had to be covered on some of the songs that wasn't being covered now, so I started doing back-ups from the board on a couple songs. Again as time went on, I was doing back-ups on about 60% of the material and became an integral part of the vocal team including most of the 10 or so originals we did each night. I became quite busy behind the board with mixing the sound, singing back-ups on more then half of the songs and getting to the solo instruments on the first note, changing the effects for the next song and bringing them in on all the right channels. You see, Dennis was anal about doing songs correctly and as close to the artists version as possible so anything less then perfection was unacceptable...We did have a reputation for being one of the best cover bands around, they got away with doing LOTS of originals because of it. I have had the privilege of working with some of the finest musicians around and spent 5 years as house engineer at The Peacock Tavern, a local club which is where I worked with most all the famous people and bands mentioned above. I attribute my success and abilities to the nurturing, excellent instruction and patience Dennis had with me and the faith he had in my abilities in the first place, the different styles of music I have worked with, the different personalities and attitudes of each and every musician worked with, playing dives with chicken wire around the stage, (remember The Blue's Brothers?) to clubs that pull the plug at 99db while working with a drummer that beats his drums and cymbals at 115db on stage...that brings a whole new meaning to cymbal ear. I have worked with other cover bands too, one of which dubbed me; "The Sound God From Hell" because of how well I had learned the craft. Later on, I had the opportunity to do some work in the studio engineering session tracks, Co-producing and even doing horn arrangements on the project of a northwest funk band called Huzzah. Dennis realized several years before, that we worked real well together in the studio. While working on a Runaway project several years earlier, we would be reaching for the same knob or slider for the same change. Runaway disbanded basically because clubs either closed down or changed from rock back to country or dropped the pay so low that they couldn't afford to pay the sound man, and the sound man is always the first to go...he did it from the stage before, right?...it sucks but not much you can do about it. Dennis was in a couple different bands after that and then started Huzzah, so by the time they were in the studio recording I was a shoe-in for engineer because Dennis had to be playing an instrument or singing. During the mix-down and mastering process Dennis and Huzzah did the arranging but for the most part, I did most all the producing and engineering on that project. This all started over 20 years ago and to this day I still haven't given Dennis an answer to whether or not I wanted to continue doing sound... I'm still checking it out, but I'm pretty sure the answer is yes!
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