Hi,
This is my music page. Hopefully I'll get to add a few new song clips onto here real soon!
Music started with me quite a while back. When I was a baby I had a kiddie xylophone that I used to hit on. I started to play percussion at school at the age of 11. That same year I joined a colonial marching drum corp called The Patriots Of Northern Virginia. I learned all of my drumming rudiments in and out of school. My main influence was my instructor, Sam Evans. He was an awesome jazz drummer and equally awesome at all the other styles he could find. I was so fast that he could do all of the rudiments as rolls. I'm still working on that. I continued on with drumming. Soon I was taking group marching drum lessons, group drum set lessons, and private drumset/marching drum lessons. I got into middle school and added percussion lessons to the mix and I was in the concert band. I got into high school and I added high school marching band to my busy musical list. Sophomore year hit and I was a little burned out from playing a bunch of music that I really wasn't as interested in. That was my last year of high school marching band, percussion lessons, and concert band. I continued on with the rest of my lessons and marching in the Patriots Of Northern Virginia. It was around this time that I borrowed my sister's mix tape. I borrowed it because I like the Scorpions. A fter the Scorpions section of the tape, there's this song that starts and the drummer's awesome. I'm listening to it and I'm like "this tape is messed up, the singer sounds messed up". I was wrong, I had found Rush. With a revived sense of inspiration I went to my teacher and asked him if he heard of Rush. He replied "I think I have a music book of theirs." I bought the book from him and the first song I learned was Tom Sawyer. I continued taking lessons. I then was aproached by Hal Poyta in high school. He was like "I hear you play drums, you wanna play?". I said "ok" and then we played. I played with a ton of people the rest of high school. I kept playing with a guy. We almost had a band, but the bassist kept missing practices. We tried to get friends to play bass, but nobody played bass for real. My senior year I was playing on my teacher's drumset and holding back from hitting real hard and he'turns to me and says "Be careful, that was my first cymbal, if you keep playing like that you might break a cymbal. You know, you're one of the most powerful drummers that I've taught." Coming from him that meant a lot since he's taught hundreds of people how to play drums and did drum clinics with Buddy Rich. A different time we were practicing and I mentioned that "I'm not going for professional, I'm just gonna do this as a hobby, a big hobby." I never got to tell him that I changed my mind because he passed away on my 21st birthday. **kicks self** Anyways, I started guitar my senior year in high school so that I could understand "how guitarist think". I continued to learn both instruments in college and jamming with people. I recorded an album with Dan Wolfe. The record had a very generic sound, even though Dan had me and Pete Kennedy and Maura Kennedy on the album too. Plus the studio technician (Jim Robeson) had a grammy. I was bothered by it because I couldn't and didn't play like me because I had to "tone it down" so I wouldn't mess up the sound of the record. All in all, it was a great experience to be in the studio and get rid of the studio jitters. I recorded 8 tracks in 6 hours. I went on and played drums with Alex E. and Matt M. and formed Psychic Twin. We played with Justin Moran while he tried to learn bass and then Alex and Matt couldn't wait for him, so Joe A. was brought in to replace him. We played acoustic open mic sets. I manned bongos, played acoustic guitar, and sang. Joe broke his ankle and didn't show up for shows for a while. We did paid gigs for a little and Joe came back finally. It was at this point that me and Alex disagreed about one key thing. I believed that we should all be equals in the writing process, but he thought otherwise. I also thought that we needed to either work on vocals a lot or get a singer. Neither Matt or Alex wanted to do that because they feared having to deal with another creative force. We set up a practice and they showed up to let me know that we weren't working out and I was waiting for them to show up to tell them that the next show was my last. haha, so we agreed that I needed to have a more experimental band and they needed a simpler drummer. Then Alex quit the band and reformed Psychic Twin with me. I'm trying to start up another group with Justin, but he's busy being all engaged and stuff (haha). I'm now playing with Banjo/Guitar/Dobero player Jimmy. Anyone wanna jam?
I am with Psychic Twin! We've played at the Laughing Lizard Lounge, Dr. Dremo's, The Grog and Tankard, IOTA, and The Royal Lee.
Did you like it?: They were fun, though the time didn't seem long enough.
Special Moments?: When I broke four sticks in one night. Maybe the time I became the house drummer at the Laughing Lizard when the house drummer didn't show up.
Rush, Scorpions, Metallica, Alice In Chains, Tool, Jimi Hendrix, A Perfect Circle, Incubus, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, Queens of the Stone Age, Nebula, King Crimson, 30 Seconds To Mars, Audiovent, Audioslave, Creed, Rage Against The Machine, White Zombie, Pink Floyd, Police, Led Zeppelin, Beck, Beatles, Bush, America, Days of the New, Eloy, Wellwater Conspiracy, and Radiohead.
Royce Drums, Remo Heads, Zildjian Cymbals, LP Cymbals, Sabian Cymbals, Camber Cymbals, Royce Cymbals, LP cowbell, DW 5002 Double Bass Drum pedal w/ double chains and iron cobra beaters, Remo Roto toms, CP Bongos, Remo and Ludwig Glockenspiels, PRS 24 Custom, Ibanez RG 270, Fender Squire Strat, Line Six Spider, Roland V-Session Drumset, Roland SPD-6 drum pads, Washburn Bass, Yamaha Acoustic, Lani Kai Tenor electric Ukulele, Hawaii Brand Ukulele, Line 6 Digital delay processor, Boss Flanger, Boss Phaser, Boss Xtortion, Boss Metal Zone, DOD Icebox, DOD Tec 4, Dunlop Wah, Ibanez TS-10 Tube Screamer, BOSS GT-6, Promark 747 and 707 woodtipped sticks, Shure In-Ear Monitors, Peavey Bass Amp, and Dunlop lucky yellow picks.
Worked With:
Josef Solidum
Justin Moran
Jon Kirby
Dan Wolfe (Fruediger)
Joe Achtzener
Alex Eliopoulos
Matt Matis
David Randall
Jim Robeson
Navdeep Singh
Jammed With:
Nik Deems
Nick LeJuene
Craig Greenberg
Justin Dodson
Ted Wood
Hal Poyta
Mikael Glago
Joe Difiglio
Michael Snowden
