The Early Years
I am from the Des Moines IA area. The Saturday that the great failed attempt by Evil Kneival to jump the Snake River canyon was televised I went with my family to an estate sale for someone on my dad's side of the family. At the sale I saw an old trombone. My dad bought it and I started lessons in the 5th grade school band. I played trombone from 5th to 9th grade. During that time my family moved from Iowa, South Carolina and then Florida. In high school the class demands did not allow me the time to continue in the school band. I still have the trombone.
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The Band Years
During high school my best friend's brother bought a drum set and formed a band called the RPMs. They were older than I was but allowed me hang out. I went to one of their gigs and really like what I saw. I went to a local music store and bought a very cheap and terrible bass guitar. I took some lessons and two friends and I formed the band called Darden. It was the typical very loud and not very good garage band but we were good friends and learned some music.
I went away to a technical school for two years. I did keep the bass and practice, I would still get together with the Darden guys at times. I returned to Orlando and started a day job. It was at that point the Darden drummer and I met Shawn Gonsalves(Shawn will be featured in my featured endorsed artist's section ) an extremely talented musician. We formed the KGB. I also upgraded my bass at that time and discovered just how poor of a bass I had been playing on. The KGB was an original band we did write about 2 hours worth of music. Most of which was the brainchild of Shawn. My playing improved ten times in this band. We did gig a few times.
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In time as with many bands we had personal problems and we changed band members. We got a new drummer and added second guitarist. We continued with most of the current originals, wrote some more, and added covers so we could gig more. The named was changed to Runner. The band recorded a three song demo. A little over a year passed and I was asked to leave the band.
I then joined a band called Wizard's Rage we wrote some originals but it was not really happening. There were small age differences and different Ideas but it was really not a good fit for me and them. I did end up with some life long friends. After this I just kinda worked and jammed for a while.
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Then the original line up from the KGB formed Vudu Mental Hardu. It was completely original music we had some fun and were thinking of recording but that just did not happen.
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I got with a new band and recruited the guitarist and drummer from Wizard's Rage. We went through several line up changes until we settled on a five piece. We name the band the band Mantra. We began writing our first originals. During the this time the one guitarist was just not insync with the band and left so the original Wizard's Rage guitarist wrote and recorded the guitars. Shortly after the album was completed our drummer left the band. The rest of the band remained together auditioning drummers. When we did not have a drummer we practiced to a metronome. We finally got a drummer who was the recording, mixing and mastering engineer of our first album. We played out in cover mode and wrote originals. By far the most tightest band I have been involved with and the most talent. We recorded and were ready to move forward but the drummer had just finished his long awaited degree at UCF and was offered a great job. I had just met my future wife and the guitarist wanted to take time off as well. I still talk to these people and are very close. The guitarist of Mantra has now become my mixing and mastering engineer.
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The Computer Years
After Mantra I tried auditioning for other bands but between working with the members in Mantra and Shawn they just did not measure up and had a short sighted vision of what a bass player should be. In addition I got married. I got my first Cakewalk and MIDI setup and spent the next years composing and actually learning much more music theory then I had before.
The Composer and Recording Years
A couple years went by and the guitarist for Mantra asked me to come jam to test out a recording set up at his house as his bass player was unavailable. I got my first look at Logic and decent home recording set up. From there it has blossomed into recorded and released material and many many ideas that are in the works. I formed Imbassman Studios and my label Drooping Herring Music. In a future page of this web site I will be discussing the story behind each released song.
The Covid Years
Like millions around the world Covid had an a massive impact on my life. My wife and were blessed by the fact in the beginning we both kept our Jobs during 2020 when so many of our friends lost theirs. 2021 was a different story. I had been told near the ending of 2020 that my company would be closing U.S. operations May 2021. As May approached my time was spent getting ready for May. In March 2021 I had a stroke. It was crazy to wake up and not have much control over your right side of my body. As a musician it was frustrating because my brain knew what to do but my right hand said nope" For my family a stroke is worse enough but Covid was full blown and vaccines were just being developed. Hospital visits were limited to a single person a day were no longer 24 hour. As I started my recovery my mother fell ill and passed. I spent the remaining 2021 recovering, dealing with my mother probate.
The Post Stroke-Valencia Years
From end of 2021 until recently I played with a band called the Bourbon Coyotes in various roles, Bass guitar, electric guitar and sound engineer. during this time I also enrolled at Valencia in for digital audio music production I am currently still at Valencia. I am learning digital media creation and music production.​