1960's I spent my early childhood in Lafayette California. It's in Northern California's East Bay area near San Francisco. At the time my father was the psychologist for the Contra Costa School District at the time, having received his doctorate from Stanford accross the bay. I was not quite four when I began picking out melodies on our family piano in the living room. Within a year my parents were noticing that I was playing more complete pieces of familiar songs. At that point they decided to put me into piano lessons. They have always been supportive of my music interests and I am grateful they discovered and promoted this talent in me. I hung in with the lessons as long as I could but found it extermely difficult to sit for an hour a day practising scales and rudiments of music and techniques. I found it MUCH MORE enjoyable to write my own melodies and songs. In less than two years I had stopped the lessons so I could work at my own creations. One introduction made a huge difference in my future career. My mother explained that my cousin Cathy and her boyfriend were moving in with us for six months or so. When they arrived I was introduced to her boyfriend Joe who was a musician in a.... jug band. I used to like to sit and watch him play his acoustic guitar. In the following months Joe's band would play at my parents parties in the living room or just sit around and plink out songs on his acoustic guitar. At that point, piano became less important and I wanted to play guitar like Joe did. Six months went by and Joe and Cathy moved out. The next I heard about him, he was in a rock band called Country Joe and the Fish. They became remarkably well known in the Bay Area as the Hippie movement came to full bloom in the late 1960's. They were one of the three headlining acts at the original 1969 Woodstock festivcal in New York state. My parents used to take me the Filmore in SF to watch his band play. That inspired my interest in having a band of my own. I put together a little trio and played a talent show. My first gig. By that time my interest in music had doubled and guitar had overtaken my interest in piano. One day I went out with my dad to help him buy a used referigerator. When we got to this guy's house to check it out there was this music playing. It was full of soulful guitar solos. Overcome, I asked who was playing and found it was BB King. I spent the next couple of years learning all of his solos and the leads off of any other R & B or Rock album I could find. I was also very intrigued with the Beatles. 1970's It was 1970, my Dad got a job offer at Sonoma State University in Santa Rosa, California. We moved to the wine country and up into the mountains where I didn't have neighborhood friends. The desolation was a motivation for me to learn and practice my music more. I was now in Junior High and started playing in various local bands. One of the people I played with, Tom Menrath was the son of one my Dad's co-workers at State. Tom brought in the drummer Jay Causbrook who at 11 years old was the scariest (BEST) drummer we ever heard. Jay brought in this guitar player, Donovan Stark. I thought I was a good guitar player until I met Donovan Stark. With this line up, my first real band was started. We called ourselves Stark Raving Mad. There were changes in that band over the years but we all stayed with it, and got better and better. Donovan, Jay and I had always admired a local band called Crossfire. They were a few years older than us and the favorite local town rock band. We liked their style and their original songs. We really wanted to sound like them. Crossfire broke up, and their players went to other projects. One day Jay ran into Gary Pihl, the guitar player and lead singer and asked him to come by and check out our band. It was probably a courtesy, but he came from Petaluma and listened to us. He was impressed and offerred to be our lead singer. We were a garage band practising at the home of our manager Frank Walburg in Santa Rosa. We were becoming well known locally. We played some of the local high Schools which helped promote us and our local shows. On weekends, we played concerts that we put on ourselves for 200 to 600 people. It was a terrific experience. Gary got a call from Sammy Hagar to audition for his band and got the gig. We were left without a lead singer so Donovan filled the part until we found someone. I was at the Mabuyhay Gardens in San Francisco one night and was watching a Sacramento band called, "Kid Courage". They had this this skinny, wild singer named Eric Martin who had a range that was unbelieveable. Meanwhile I went to Los Angeles to temporarily play for the summer with a band that I met through my Dad's College named 'Destiny'. During the summer break from college the students in this band were all going back home to Beverly Hills and dragged me with them. We played a bunch of big Hollywood Hills parties where I was approached by a manager who told me if I ever had 'something together' to call him. His name was John Golden and his partner was Chris Nicks (Stevie Nicks brother). At one of the parties we played I met Hernando Courtwright who now manages some big music producers. His father owned the Beverly Wilshire Hotel where he lived. All major acts stayed there when they played in LA. Hernando and I spent a lot of time hanging with bands like the Stones. Hernando knew everone! Eventually we decided we were going to start a band together with him as the singer, so I moved INTO the Beverley Wilshire for the remainder of the summer. Needless to say this was quite a time in my life. By the time summer was over me and Hernando had given up on the band idea and I went back to Northern Cal. I decided to track down Eric Martin. To try to reach him, I put an ad in the Northern Cal edition of BAM magazine. I couldn't count on Eric finding the ad and calling me so I put a $100 reward for anyone getting Eric's phone number for me. A friend of his called me and put me in touch with him. Within a week Stark Raving Mad with Eric as front man was on the way back down to LA. This time I called John Golden and we were provided with a band house in Woodland Hills for us to live in while we recorded at various new studios like Smoketree in Chatsworth and Dr. Music in Hollywood. We recorded several demos and the band went through several changes with the ending lineup being me, Eric, Tony Fanucchi and David Payne. Within a year we had called it quits. We all came back up north with a lot of experience as players and as people familiar with a recording studio. Like many musicians, I started to play in bars doing covers but at the same time had hooked up with a drummer named Troy Luketa, who was in a band called City Kid (later became Tesla). Troy and I, along with singer Dave Notary started a band and built a cool rehearsal studio in Hayward. At night I played in the clubs and during the day I rehearsed with Troy and Dave. I was playing a two week engagement at a Bowling Alley in Fairfield, CA when I got a call from Kevin Carlson, a friend that I met through Troy and Dave. He had just auditioned for a completely unknown Canadian musician named Aldo Nova, who was auditioning Bay Area nusicians to form a band to tour in support of his debut album. I did the audition and got the gig. Within a day I was on my way to LA to film the video for the first single from the record. That video helped move the song called Fantasy to number 3 on the national charts. 1980's I toured with Aldo all of 1982, opening up for most of the top rock acts like Heart, Cheap Trick, Blue Oyster Cult, Hall and Oats, and Journey. After we got off the road, I started working with bass player Jeff Pilsen writing songs. We were living in Northern California then. I was in Sonoma County and Jeff lived in Marin County. A week into our writing, Jeff called me and said, "Hey, would you be interested in playing keyboards with Nick Gilder?" (Hot Child in the City) So I went off to LA again! I got the audition and moved back to LA. A few weeks later Jeff also moved to LA to possibly play with Lita Ford (Runaways). In the next few months, me and Jeff became aquantied with a few guys and a lead singer named Emi Canon. She later went on the sing with Motley Crue as one of their backing singers, "the Nasty Habits". For the next year I exisited doing whatever gigs came along. One day while I was in a studio, I ran into Eric Martin again. He asked me to go tour with him supporting his new album. We opened up for Tina Turner. He was under contract to CBS and Journey's management Herbie Herbert. Eric still lived in Northern California so I moved back again and spent the next two years playing dates with him. We played with Neal Schon, Jonathon Cain and Greg Rollie (all from Journey) as well as Ricky Phillips (from The Baby's). Our drummer was Mugs Cain, (Jonathon's younger brother) who had been in the Jeff and Emi band I was with in LA. We used the name "Eric Martin and Friends". I played with the 'Eric Martin and Friends' band for just under 2 years performing at various clubs around the Bay Area. Then I got a call from Alice Cooper's management to audition for an upcoming tour. I got the job and moved back to LA (by now I was sick of moving back and forth). There were a number of interesting people in the band. During the first couple of days of rehersals, I got there early and had to wait for the building to be opened. Kip Winger (who had been hired as the Bass player for the tour) was also in the hallway waiting. He had a cassette player and was playing a tape of songs that he had written, performed and recorded. I was very impressed. I asked who was singing, and was surprised when he said he did the vocals. In the next few days I played him some of my songs. That started a writing relationship between us. We toured with Alice for a straight year all the while writing songs together in the hotel rooms. During the first break, Kip and I flew to Boulder Colo along with our drummer Ken Mary (House of Lords). We recorded what would become the first Winger demos at Kip's brother's studio. At the point where we were supposed to go back on the road, Kip decided to leave the Alice band and flew to New York and wrote for a while with Reb Beach. Reb was the guitar player he always had in mind for the Winger project. I went back out with Alice and was in Europe when I got the call from Kip - he had taken all the demos and gotten a deal with Atlantic Records. When I finished the European leg of the 1987 Alice tour, I flew straight back to New York and hooked up with the other members of the band that now consisted of Kip, Reb, Rod Morganstein, {who they had met while recording some of the Winger demos) and me. Rod was the well known drummer of the Dixie Dregs. Reb, Kip and I were sharing a condo in Hoboken New Jersey and rehearsing in a big warehouse about a mile from our place. The rehearsals lasted two months during which time the first record was wrapped up. The band was originally using the name 'Sahara' but found that a band out of LA already used the name and refused to give it up. When Kip was younger, he had garage bands with his brothers. They had used the name Winger as kids and we decided to use it again now. (Kip's brothers are also great singers! Kip, Nate and Paul all were backing vocalists on one of the RATT albums) Our record was released in '87. The video "Madelaine" was immediately picked up by MTV and the band took off. It was 1988, our first show was opening for Scoprions in Minneapolis in front of 13,000 people. We played with them for a month and over the next few months we toured with Bad Co, Cinderella, Ozzy Osbourne, and Deep Purple. After a solid year of touring the US, Japan and Europe we quickly started writing our second album, "In the Heart of the Young". We wrote most of it in a 'live' environment at "Mates Rehersals" in Burbank, CA and then recorded the album at the "Enterprise". For our second album, we toured with Kiss, and various other bands over the next two years straight. 1990's By this time, I'd been on tour for a total of six years; two years with Alice Cooper and another 4 years with Winger. I was facing exhasution and really wanted to get back to song writing. The Winger tour ended and I left the band around September 1991. Within a month I ran into an old friend Cindy Poon. She worked for Fan Asylum who handled Journey's Fan Club and Merchandising. I asked her what Steve Perry had been up to, and told her that "if he was ever up to writing a song together I would be extremely interested." To my surprise I got a call at 6:30 the next morning from Steve. Within a couple of hours he was at my house sipping coffee and listeneing to songs. It was probably about three months later when we got together to jam for the first time. With us was guitar player Lincoln Brewster {an 18 year old kid from Modesto CA} and Terry Bozio on drums {from the Missing Persons} and Phillip Byno (from Steve Vai's Band). We jammed all day long on. As the next few months went by, Steve, Lincoln and I played with..... all the best session players around and were slowing accumulating some fantastic song ideas. We ended up hiring Moyes Lucas Jr. on drums (he'd played with everyone from Diana Ross to George Michaels). We also hired Todd Jenson on bass , (he'd played with David Lee Roth of Van Halen, and Paul Rogers of Bad Co). We played together for about six months when Steve finally expressed that he was ready to turn some of these concepts into a Steve Perry album. We hired on Queensryke's producer and started recording "For the Love of Strange Medicine". By 1994 we had the album fininshed and went out on the road for a four month tour to suppport the record. When the tour was finished Steve took a little time off and then went back with Journey to record the "Trial by Fire" album. After the tour it was time to go back to my own projects. I always had a major interest in Photography.. I took some photo classes at ULCA and began doing portrait and landscape shots over the next couple of years. It's remained a hobby of mine. In 1998 I got a call from the Alice Cooper camp asking me if I wanted to hit the road again. This time with my Winger buddy Reb on guitar and my Steve Perry band buddy Todd Jenson on bass. I took the gig and was out again. This time to Australia (first time) and Europe (billionth time). This went on for about a year a with one of our final shows being at House of Blues in LA. Tommy Shaw (Styx) was in the audience. He came back stage to say 'Hi' and asked how long the tour still had to go. When I said this show was it, he was pleased because he needed a utility man (keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist) for his upcoming tour with Peter Frampton and Lynard Skynard. It was only a one month tour but we had a blast!! It was me, Tommy, Michael Carteloni (Damn Yankees) and Tom Lilly on bass. A month later the tour was over, I was home and got a call about doing some John Waite dates. Over the next few months I was did some sporadic dates in the Mid-West. Between the performances, there were weeks where I was able to get involved in other projects back in LA. 2000's Now the year 2000... I ran into my old friend and ex-Keel guitarist Mark Ferarri. I asked him what he had been up and he explained that he had placed over 100 songs on televsion shows and movies over the past few years. He asked if I was interested in writing with him in this field. For the next year of writing with him, we placed songs in everything from the 2000 Olympics show on NBC to Entertainment Tonight. We also placed a song in the movie "Pushing Tin" with Billie Bob Thornton and John Cusac. I found writing for television to be very Interesting and have spent the last couple of years writing as much music as I can for TV (including the "Sabrina - the teenage Witch" main title theme). I'm continually writing for television and my list of Film & TV credits can be seen on my TV & Film page. I'll be leaving for the upcoming Winger tour on May 15th and looking forward to seeing you out there.