THE EARLY YEARS : 
I was raised in Orange County, CA..
My Mom plays piano and sings and she tried to get me to play piano, but I hated to practice! When I was twelve years old, I started playing Bass Clarinet and when it got stolen I switched to clarinet. Over the next couple of years I also noodled around on sax, flute and trombone. But to this day I still can't play the piano! 

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GUITAR : 
I gave up on the clarinet when I started high school... because, let's face it, the clarinet player never gets the girls. When I was 16, my best friend Pete was starting a "Beatle Tribute Band" and said he needed a bass player ... so I bought a bass and pretended to be Paul McCartney. 

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Whenever we rehearsed, I was always showing the other guitar players how to play their parts - I think at that time I had an acoustic guitar that I was learning on. Finally, one day they said "You should be the guitar player!" And so I borrowed an electric guitar and started pretending to be George Harrison.

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INFLUENCE : 
I was aware of pop/rock music at a very early age... and used to get in trouble for falling asleep with the radio playing under my pillow. But I had a love for many type of pop music: Beatles, Beach Boys, Motown, R&B, even soft rock and disco. 

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As a guitar player, my main influences have always been Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin The Who, etc. As I got older, I discovered the players that influenced them, such as Freddie King, Albert King, Chuck Berry, Cliff Gallup and the great Bert Jansch. I also started appreciating jazz-influenced music and Larry Carlton became a major influence. Let's not forget the King of Surf Guitar, Dick Dale!