VICE - Ontario CA

Lester Davidson, Ruben Nuñez & I (Jim Brookshire) were in a cover band by the name of Living Sin. We did primarily European metal like early Judas Priest, Sampson, Black Sabbath, etc. Doug Baker was one of the best bass players from our local area (he went on to play in a band with Jeff Scott Soto called Kuni). Doug and I had a common love for Thin Lizzy so that was one of the first things that brought us together. I resigned from Living Sin and then brought Ruben & Les over and we formed a band called Prodigy. I started to write original music which was very fast and progressive, so we did some of my stuff plus a lot of awesome covers like Emerald by Thin Lizzy, Ogre Battle by Queen, and Symptom of the Universe by Sabbath. We did the covers fast and powerful.

That is when I met John Guinn who also had some original material that was similar to mine. We then came together as Vice and John introduced us to Rodney Reil (who produced our EP and Kevin Bowman (who became our manager).

Here is some background on the songwriting of the four songs on the EP:

The Stalker: I wrote the music and the lyrics to this song in my bedroom at my parent’s house around the age of 16. The lyrics were inspired by my fascination with serial killers; I have always been terrified by the fact that they exist and fascinated that somebody could actually sink to such a depth of depravity. I always thought that the bass solo that Doug Baker supplied on this song was one of the best that I ever heard.

Battle Cat: This song started out with a riff written by John Guinn (Our original co-guitarist), I built the rest of the song around the opening riff. I wrote the lyrics and they were slightly modified by Lester. I conceived the idea for the song because a bunch of people used to come to my house everyday and we used to sit around and watch He-Man and Battle Cat. So I started writing about Battle Cat added a slightly demonic story line.

Feel the Fire: Our drummer Ruben and I wrote this song one day when we were the first ones to show up for band practice. We knocked the whole song out in about fifteen minutes. Lester added the lyrics later. Spontaneity can sometimes produce great music no thinking about any type of commercial motivation; just straight from the heart metal.

Two Wheel Thunder: This song started out as something written by John Guinn it had a really funky rhythm so it was not really our style. I added an Iron Maiden style gallop to make it sound heavier and Lester wrote the lyrics.

After we released the EP we started to get a lot of great gigs around town and out towards Los Angeles. We played with Gun's n' Roses, Poison, Great White, Yngwie Malmsteen, Keel, Pat Travers, UFO, King Kobra, Malice, I felt very honored to be on the same bill as some of my childhood heroes like UFO & Pat Travers as well as new bands that I had huge respect for at the time like Malice & Yngwie.

After we released the EP we started to get a lot of great gigs around town and out towards Los Angeles. We played with Gun's n' Roses, Poison, Great White, Yngwie Malmsteen, Keel, Pat Travers, UFO, King Kobra, Malice, I felt very honored to be on the same bill as some of my childhood heroes like UFO & Pat Travers as well as new bands that I had huge respect for at the time like Malice & Yngwie.

Too many to list; primarily traditional & NWOBHM & Thrash

ESP LTD & Fender Esquire - with Semour Duncan & Marshal amps