My Miniature Biography My musical journey begins when I was 9 years old. It was 1986 and Poison had just debuted with Look What the Cat Dragged In. That was really the first time I fell in love with any music. Shortly after, I got into pretty much all of the 80s mainstream glam metal bands, but Poison was always, and to this day is, my favorite glam band. I didn’t get into heavier stuff until I heard Metallica in 1992. “Wherever I May Roam” off the black album struck a particular interest in me with that eerie Egyptian-like sound (which I later learned is the infamous harmonic minor scale). After listening to that tune a million times over, I decided to look into the rest of that album and eventually purchased the black album after buying all the singles. Over the next year, I collected the other four Metallica albums: Kill ‘em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and And Justice For All. Believe it or not, the older stuff had to grow on me. The first time I heard those albums I didn’t care for them. Soon, I would love them to the extent that Metallica became my favorite band. Around October of 1993, I decided that I couldn’t just listen to Metallica all day long and not react to it in some way. I couldn’t sit still listening to them because they charged me up so much. I started beating on my chair, my bed, my dresser, whatever I could find to make a cool percussion sound. I originally wanted to play drums because I was so infatuated with Lars Ulrich’s unique style of playing. My parents would not let drums happen because a kit would have driven them crazy to have to listen to in the house. So, my next choice was guitar! I had an old guitar in my closet, since I was about seven, that I never learned to play. I begged my parents for it, though I only tried it maybe once or twice. It was to hard to get the notes to sound without my fingers hurting, so I gave up. In late August, 1993, two days after high school started for me, I broke my foot jumping into a house foundation because I felt I was invincible that day. I found out the hard way that I was really being stupid! I had to wear a cast on my leg for the next six weeks and couldn’t really do anything. Being unable to go anywhere or do anything, I decided to pick up that old guitar and start learning to play. The first song I learned was “For Whom The Bell Tolls.” I worked my ass off trying to learn it by ear. An old friend helped me out a lot by showing me how to read tabs, and by showing me power chords and the palm-muting technique. That was enough help to get me going. I practiced 10 to 16 hours a day for the first couple of years; I played nothing but Metallica. I had all their songs learned and memorized in a year and a half. I also had gotten heavily into Queensryche by this time. So much, in fact, that Metallica and Queensryche were now my two favorite bands. In 1996, Metallica came out with Load. I had waited years for that album! I was so excited about it and I felt they could do no wrong. As it turns out, Load sucked so badly I actually wanted to cry! I went to a release party at a local record store and I remember the store was packed with eager Metallica fans. Not a single one had a trace of excitement as the new album was being played. We all bought the album anyway because we had waited so long for it. Shortly after the release of Load, Queensryche released Hear in the Now Frontier. To me, this album was probably worse than Load. My two favorite bands had completely gone sour and, in my opinion, had sold out one hundred percent to the current times. Around this time, I bought a compilation album called Twisted Metal. Through this wonderful compilation, I discovered King Diamond, W.A.S.P, Metal Church and Yngwie Malmsteen. I especially loved Yngwie and King! With the first check I ever wrote, I decided to go purchase everything King had ever done. It was a $127 check, if I remember right. King had just released the graveyard had just come out at that time. I also bought everything Yngwie released and eventually collected all the Metal Church albums, too. But with Wasp, the only song I was ever crazy about was The Headless Children. Now that I felt Metallica and Queensryche both completely sucked and sold out, King Diamond naturally took over as favorite. Yngwie was right after the King. I also got into Mercyful Fate very heavily. I started to listen to more classical music, mostly Bach. Both Yngwie and King combine classical music and metal to create neo-classical metal, the most powerful style in history! After a few years of teaching myself to play mostly the same stuff, I went out and signed up for lessons at The Music Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin. My guitar teacher was Terry Peterson, one of the most talented guitar players I have ever heard! My first lesson with him was the very same day I went to sign up. He taught me endlessly on technique, theory, applied theory, etc. It wasn’t until I started taking lessons from Terry that I got into any lead playing at all. What prompted me to start taking lessons in the first place was a local guitarist that played for me. I was advertising for a band, and, at the time all I played was rhythm: absolutely no lead whatsoever! I believed to play the kind of lead that I like, you just had to be born with that kind of talent and I certainly was not born with that! One guy that responded to my ad wanted me to come over and see him play and, if I liked it, possibly form a band. I went over and he played me the most amazing lead guitar I had ever heard. This wasn’t Yngwie, or Andy LaRoque, or early Kirk Hammet: this was just an ordinary guy that was standing two feet in front of me alternate picking, sweep picking and improvising the most amazing lead work. Most of his stuff was based around harmonic minor, melodic minor and full diminished ideas; this was definitely the style that appealed to me more than anything. I went home that night and realized that it is possible for me to learn to play like that. No longer would I place limitations on my playing ability. Music lessons here we come! In 1996, I wrote enough songs to make my first demonstration cassette, about 45 minutes worth of music. The material is as good as it is due to Terry’s teaching. You can find out more about my demo “Eyes of Fire” at http://www.eyesoffire.net. It’s my only recording as of now, but soon there will be much more. Stay posted at my website at http://www.eyesoffire.net After a couple years of lessons with Terry, I took on a second teacher, Rex Carroll. Rex used to play in a well-known Christian metal band called Whitecross. Rex was the Eddie Van Halen of Christian guitar players. He was probably even better than Eddie: very technical, precise, an amazing improviser, songwriter etc. Rex wasn’t as well-versed in theory as Terry, but he had the ability to teach me practice techniques and soulfullness. Both players are equally good, but each with their own qualities. I am very lucky to have had them teach me. After about nine months of lessons with Rex, he had to embark on a European tour with his band and had to take a break from teaching. Upon his return, I decided not to continue my study with him, simply because I didn’t want to pay for two teachers again. I continued to take lessons from Terry for another year or so but in August/September of 1998 I cancelled my studies with Terry for personal reasons. Since then I have taken no lessons. I have enough books, notebooks and tapes of my lessons to last more than a lifetime. Now, for the first time ever, I am in a band. I started my search to join or form a band in 1994/95. In January of 2002, A Touch of Evil invited me to join after I jammed with them at their practices for a few weeks. Doug, A Touch of Evil guitarist, found an ad that I had placed in the classifieds at milwaukeerocks.com and contacted me via e-mail from there. From the first time I heard these guys play, I knew this band was definitely different than any other band you ever see or hear, especially on the local level. Doug, Mike, Jeremy and Megan are great musicians with some very innovative ideas and songwriting abilities. I am proud to be a member of this “rising force” which will sweep through Milwaukee like a bat out of hell and eventually conquer the world. My Vision: There are a lot of bands I enjoy listening to from all generations including a lot from today, however as far as mainstream go’s, the only generation I ever fell in love with is the 1980’s. The 80’s by far had the most technically advanced and modern musicians ever to this day whether you want to believe it or not! Now remember, I’m speaking STRICKLY mainstream! Going into the very early 90’s, mainstream rock and metal got far to intricate, complicated, advanced, modern etc etc etc for the mainstream crowd to handle. Even when mainstream peeked, the feeble mainstream industry could’nt handle the best of the best. Examples are King Diamond, Yngwie Malmsteen, Great Kat, Savatage, Manowar etc etc etc, but the bands that did make it commercially with popularity were the best that mainstream could ever do, never was mainstream more advanced and modernized in a timeless fashion than that of the 1980’s. When that scene did peek in the very early 90’s, naturally mainstream couldn’t handle it any longer and the idea of mastering your instrument to put no limitations on your self expression and moving forward in time completely blew up and fell back to rock bottom and alterna-grunge was born in mainstream music. Hence, we stepped backward in a musical timelime to about the year 0004 ??? In Mainstream music since the fall of glam metel and the rise of alterna-grunge the masses have been time warped and completely and most utterly decieved into thinking that they ARE in the now and not stuck in time simply because the mainstream is now “different” than it was before. In my opinion, change is a wonderful thing but only if it’s a progression!!! Unfortunately history has shown as that for the masses, change is embraced simply for The sake of change and lack of quality even if the change is a step back instead of a step forward. I personally Do not want to step backward, but instead always forward! If change means degressing by about 2,000 years, I would press to find a better form of change, a MUCH better form!! Most mainstream people seem to have the utmost pride for being up to date in the timeline of pop culture and are blinded to the fact they have been utterly decieved. A Touch of Evil and Eyes of Fire are the most perfect bands to pick up where mainstream left off in the very early 90’s and move forward into the 21st century intensifying mainstream more so than it ever has been! But most importantly, create a diverse enough mainstream so that there ultimately is no mainstream left to waste away what is left of the masses comformative lethargic brains. There are many new bands actually that are perfect right along side with us. For example, Hollow, Stratovarious, Death, Control Denied, Nightwish, Rhapsody, Primal Fear etc etc etc... Listen to these bands, feel there energy and get into the 21st century! Will the world ever embrace this? Or just continue to be morons? As for me, I believe music is timeless and should NOT be cheapened, blasphemied and used to represent a time line of pop culture and even worse, pride your self on being updated with the times while your clueless on the deception that has surpassed you while your in total denial as you are reading this thinking to yourself that I don’t know what I’m writing about. My Message to all: Bottom line, I believe in individuality! Listen to whatever brings you joy regardless of where it fits on a time line of pop culture or how popular it is or what style of music it may be! Stimulate your brain! Think for yourself no matter what anyone else says! This has to happen in the world amoung the masses if we can ever expect to move on and out of our archaic way’s of thinking and join the 21st century!!! *Update: I'm available for Lead/Rhythm Guitar position
© Eyes of Fire 1995. laws #1 , laws #2
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