BIO 

BDAY: 8.16.65

BPLACE: Concord, NC

FAMILY: Wife is Maria (20 years in Dec ’09!), Josh, Chris, Ali, and Andy.

OCCUPATION: Founder and Pastor at Full Life Foursquare Church

MUSICAL BACKGROUND: I was a drummer all the way through middle and high school – marchin band, concert band and all of that. Earliest muscal memories are of using wooden spoons on pot and pans. I started playing guitar in 1978 as a kid. First guitar was a no name pawn shop SG copy with a Fender Princeton amp (blackface model). First effect was an ElectroHarmonix Big Muff Pi! Had a Small Stone phaser within a year and then it was an MXR Distortion+ and finally an original Memory Man. Got an original yellow Ibanez flanger too! Really cool. Always liked making ethereal sounds up. I used to chain all these together and instead of pluggin the input into the guitar, I’d plug it back into the amp creating this really weird pseudo synth sound! Sometimes I’d set the guitar against the amp so it would feedback and sit and mess with the various fx controls to see what strange and wonderful tones would emerge!

MUSICAL INFLUENCES: Elton John’s greatest hits was my first album – think I was 11 at the time or around there. I loved Saturday Night’s Alight for Fighting. Then I took note of my brother’s Grand Funk 8 tracks (yeah – seriously!) and finally he got a great turntable and I discovered his albums – early Kiss, Nugent, then Aerosmith (Toys in the Attic and ROCKS – all time fave Asmith album!!! Rats in the Cellar is amazing!) but everything changed when I heard the first BOSTON album. Man! Those harmonies and melodies  - I felt like I’d never heard music before! Waited two years on the 2^nd album and decided I only liked their first album! LOL! Then I remember the spring morning when I was out of school on a snow day… I was staring out the window at the blinding world of white snow and I had on this little clock radio when I heard “Spirit of Radio” by Rush!!! Yikes! New time signatures, these complex counter rhythms and great tones just captured my imagination. I went on to learn nearly every song in the Rush  catalogue up to that point. Not long after I heard EVH – Eruption I think – on that same old clock radio! The tapping thing opened up and it was a whole new world of possibilities. In January of ’82 I heard “Over the Mountain” by Randy Rhoads and this whole idea of incorporating classical influences came into play – his phrasing was breathtaking. After Randy died, I set out searching for guitarists who could help me push further along the path his playing had set me on (lots of emotion and drama with a seriousness to it). I discovered Yngwie Malmsteen in the spring of ’83. Can’t talk about influences without mentioning Thin Lizzy! Great songwriting, wonderful melodies, soaring guitar work! And then Paul Gilbert. He brought it all together in one place – technique, emotion, drama – always have enjoyed PGs music. Got tired of the hair band thing and discovered how much The Edge from U2 could stir you with these really graceful lines and ethereal tones! Been a huge U2 fan ever since. Discovered Foo Fighters in the late 90’s when my long time musical partner John Swinger noted that much of what we were writing in YIELD had a similar vibe to it. REALLY LIKE Grohl’s music! Feel like one of the most under-the-radar-bands ever was The Benjamin Gate. They were awesome!

FAVORITE BAND: U2

FAVORITE SONG: Where The Streets Have No Name

FAVORITE SINGER: Guy - Mark Stuart of Audio Adrenaline and girl - Crystal Lewis.

FAVORITE FOOD: Hibachi style Japanese – love dem little carrots!

FAVORITE COLOR: Orange

MOUNTAINS OR BEACH? Beach – hands down.

HOBBIES: Cycling, graphic design, reading, sci-fi with the wife and kids!

FAVORITE MOVIE: LOTR trilogy

FAVORITE TV SHOW: Babylon 5 with all Star Trek's in a close 2nd (DS9 was great!!!) - Jericho was great too (Skeet Ulrich went to my high school but it was after I graduated - my Dad taught him Chemistry I think...)

BOOK? Bible and anything by CS Lewis - Eugene Peterson's got it goin on too! I also like G.E. Ladd's theological works as well as Francis Schaeffer. For a challenge,  I'm actually aiming to read "War and Peace" in 2k9!

DRINK? I’m a tea guy myself… 

FAVORITE GIG: Weekly at church working with John Swinger and Chris Roseman in YIELD. There’s this level of improve and creativity that is always right there and available that happens so rarely in the vast majority of settings. These guys just go to all the fun places musically instantly. John knows what I’m doing before I do usually! 

NIGHTMARE GIG: Two of them – a studio session with a well known producer in Nashville. He hated everything about the whole project from the first introductions and I was a session guy on the thing. He literally had my friends in tears and was relentless in pointing out everyone’s every flaw. The upshot was that I came home and totally reworked my tone and technique – determined to not have that experience again! Second was an outdoor gig called “Glory Days”. Sound contractor had a grudge over some perceived slight from nearly 8 years earlier and greeted me with a firm handshake and a wink while saying ”PAYBACK TIME!” He then proceeded to sabotage the mix the entire set but the joke was on him – We were using in ear monitoring so he wasn’t hurting us at all on stage and as for the FOH, everyone kept commenting on how incompetent the sound guy was! He only made a bad name for himself! Funny what a grudge will do to ya!!! Oh yeah – one more: On the first CABCO ROAD CREW gig, the sound vendor (totally different company) was charging us $3500 for the stage and PA. All during setup the crew was kinda  snobby toward the band as they seemed to feel they were doing us a favor or something by showing up – you know “We’re the experts here to help you little guys out”. Well the experts had all the monitor sends set to POSTFADER on their brand spanking new digital fully automated board so every time they’d tweak anything, it totally changed the monitor mix. We came off stage with our ears practically bleeding due to the intense volume (yeah – they kept riding the gain on the guitar and drums as we played so by the end it was deafening!) – and only 24 hours later did someone come up and say “oops – we didn’t see the monitor routing until we got way down in the submenus on the board’s graphic interface”! Too funny – and too painful!

WHY I LIKE DOING LIVE LOOPING: The spontaneous creation of music is priceless – it requires patience from the listener sometimes as the performer explores new directions but I think it can be worth it for listener and artist.