h i s t o r y It all started in 1980, upon catching Casey Kasem's American Top 40 one fateful afternoon. While i had previously enjoyed the occasional tune here and there, it was hearing Casey that really started the whole mess. And the fact that the music world was moving more into my area of liking didn't hurt either. I was hooked. The next year i got my first guitar and my first keyboard. Just a punk kid hardly out of diapers, i languished for a few years before running across a kindred spirit drummer at the dawn of high school, and we set upon playing cheap & easy cover tunes and writing the occasional mediocre original. We had lots of fun, but could never find a bass player. So i borrowed a bass from a friend to give it a try. The next day i went shopping for my own. Through high school i did the usual revolving door of bands until seeing an ad for a band called ARRAKIS that was looking for a bass player. I was blown away by the combined talents of the guitarist & drummer, both of whom to this day remain the bar, and the band remains the most talented and diverse band of which i've ever been a part. But before we could really accomplish much, attitudes, ego, and immaturity - mine as much as anyone else's - broke us apart. But i remember the experience fondly and learned much, as well, both in terms of musicality and maturity. And while the guitarist and i didn't see eye to eye much of the time, his influence on my music exceeds that of any other musician to ever walk this planet. After ARRAKIS i had two simultaneous original projects - MILLENNIUM and DEAR DEAD DELILA. MILLENNIUM was very much in the vein of QUEENSRYCHE, CRIMSON GLORY, FATE'S WARNING... and did it damned well. We developed a large regional following and were working on a record deal, but it never came through. Though very much the side project at the start, it was DEAR DEAD DELILA that eventually became the focal point of my efforts. We never had the widespread regional following of MILLENNIUM, but we had the larger college following, and independantly released two albums . While the first had little impact beyond 'cult' status, the second one, EROSION, did well on some college and independant charts across North America. Upon the amicable demise of DELILA, i took a short 'sabbatical' from playing and spent a few years managing a record store. When i returned to playing music, i floated through a couple bands on my way to MR. BLACKWELL. The heaviest of any of my bands, MR. BLACKWELL released 3 albums - MR. BLACKWELL, BURN, and SOUL MAN - and charted nationally on both major and college charts in the United States and Canada. In September 2003, pretty much upon completion of a 4th album, it became evident that the band and i were going in different directions, so under very amicable conditions, i backed out. The band quickly evolved into TRIBE, and that 4th MR. BLACKWELL album evolved into the self-titled TRIBE debut, which was released in January of 2004. Though no longer a part of the band, i played all the bass and cello tracks on TRIBE, as well as most of the backing vocals and many of the keyboard tracks. I also did two more gigs with them as a fill-in, one in October of 2003 and one in September of 2004. They broke up at the beginning of 2005 (and have since reformed, once again as MR. BLACKWELL). Following MR. BLACKWELL i briefly joined a classic rock cover band where i played keyboards and sang a fair chunk of the tunes. The whole collaboration was rather much doomed from the start, as we weren't looking for the same things, but we stuck it out for a while and it was a great opportunity to do something different. From there to singing for a Raleigh-based progressive metal band called AVERIS for almost a year, and now i'm working at varying levels of destination with three different projects, mainly with a second project called DEAR DEAD DELILA. I'm also working on project with guitarist Eric Aittala and drummer Brian LaRue called DWELL and a band called EL ADONIS. So much for slowing down a bit.