THE BIO

So you really want to know?
I was young and naive. Weren't we all? When I was a 15, I used to sing Aerosmith songs to my self on the way to class. A friend of mine Bridget Demars and Billy Konstane told me you should try out for our school musical. And thats how I got involved in music. I was in all the plays and musicals and joined the choir later. I was also in the school band because my mother made me do it. Although it was a good thing cause I meet some good friends and people who influenced me. I started playing guitar when I was 16, I guess to release all that teenage anger. Don't get my wrong the songs aren't angry. It was my way of coping. Some of the guys from my high school used to play guitar in the halls after class and I enjoyed playing with a friend named Ben Williams who was very talented. One day I came across a guy a year younger than me who was playing guitar and I (like an idiot) said, "hey you play guitar?" he was like, "Uh, yeah" and I said, "I'm trying to start a rock band you want to play" he said "Ok" and that's how I met Nick Venturella. We became friends and soon formed a band called Din Addiction with Nick Vonder Ehe on bass and Robbie DeAngeles on drums and later Nicks older brother Tim as our drummer. In the beginning we were pretty bad but we got better. I found Nick was much better at me on guitar and he was out lead. I played rhythm and sang. Nick and I wrote the songs. We played for the school talent shows and a few battle of the bands. We won the county fair battle of the bands, that may have to do with the fact that after we went a huge storm hit and they cancelled the rest. It was so cool being on stage and watching the black thick clouds roll in and see the lighting coming! Winning was just icing on the cake and a nice boast to our egos.
Din Addiction broke up, partly because we were going to college and partly because nick's older brother Tim had other things going on in his life like a job and all the other adult things to do that we didn't much understand at the time. Nick and I decided to play out as an acoustic duo act called Gemini's Rival I liked that name. I thought it was fitting since people mistook us for brothers and we were as close as brothers and we both wanted to be stars! We played out many places and had lots of good times all through college. We played at coffee shops and schools and stores, like Sprizzo's in Waukesha, Star Bucks, Gino's Deli, Edgewood College, St. Olaf college, a coffee place in Winona just to name a few. Playing out in Wisconsin is kind of a hard gig. There not that many venues and most of the crowds want to hear cover tunes. I can't stand playing covers, to me it was like whoring my self out. I wanted people to either like the songs I made or not simple as that. As a result I didn't learn how to play many covers so to this day if you ask me to play some Skynard I don't know it! There were a few we played for our own enjoyment and we changed them up a little. Love is what I got- Sublime (an awsome band, rest in peace Brad Lee!), Knocking on Heavens door- GNR style, (Axl kicks ass), Leaving On a Jet Plane- our verson, and Angel by Aerosmith (my tribute to the band that inspired me and helped me make it out of adolescence). Nick and I recorded two cd's as Gemini's Rival: Touring the Coffee Circuit and You Don't have to Be a Rock Star to Party Like One, yeah its a long title.
We wrote a lot of songs and had a very good chemistry writing and good stage presence. We looked for other ways to express our music and my senior year in college we wrote a musical called "Lost In Madison", we produced it, I directed and was the lead in it at St. Olaf college. Man that was tough! I had been in many musicals but that was a lot of hats to wear at once and I'm not a good multi tasker. Still it was a great feeling of accomplishment and we enjoyed it. Nick and I were serious about only one thing, music, the rest of the time we big goofs. If you knew us you would understand. He had a very care free attitude and was probably the funniest guy you'd ever met. He was not afraid to be himself no matter what that was. It's a rare quality that I admired a lot and learned from him. After college we grew apart and stopped playing music together. Nick wanted to do his own musical act and we had a falling out and didn't talk to each other much after that. Years later he called on Christmas and we buried the hatchet. He is the one who did the layout for my demo cd.
After looking around I found some guys and started a new band in Waukesha called Grind 59 with Craig Friemoth (an amazing guitarist) on lead, Bob Cobb (a crazy, funny guy) on bass and Dan Hollman (a great guy I admire and respect) as the drummer. They were all older than me Craig and Bobb were married and Dan was divorced. All of us were working day jobs and I don't know about them but I lived for that band. It made my life tolerable. We were together for a year or so and recorded 5 of the songs on the Demo. Those songs I wrote but they had other songs they wrote. We had a lot of fun and our sound was tight but Dan the drummer got promoted at his job and had to travel a lot. With out him there was no band he was really the glue that held us together. After that I moved to New York were I am doing my thing now.
Music and performing is what has always made me happiest. I figure when you are dead and gone only a few people will remember you but the things you do can live on. I don't care for being famous but if people pop in my cd from time to time and enjoy it then I'm happy.