I had wanted to play guitar for as long as I can remember. I had various plastic guitars, the kind you would buy in a toy store, when I was 3 or 4 years old.
My first guitar was a no-brand acoustic. I took to it right away, and within a few years we got a deal on a Les Paul Custom. That was my first electric.
Demonax was my high school band. We made a demo which was eventually released on vinyl. Only 1,000 copies were made so I don't even know if you can still find them. I have one copy. Demonax was thrash, influenced by new music of the time, early Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax, Exciter, etc, as well as punk bands like GBH, Flipper, Chrome, Sex Pistols, etc.
I met the guys in Fates and Jim and I started "jamming" on classical guitar. We would trade pieces, play duets, and share technique secrets. When Vic left Fates they "borrowed" me for a tour, and I just stayed on.
I left in '95 and played for a brief time with All That Is, followed by a solo effort called Dragonspoon (named after my favorite spoon when I was a kid...actually, it was a sort of "spork"..haa haa...).
I joined up with Fates again when Mike Portnoy put together the Dream Theater/Queensryche/Fates Warning tour in 2003. Boy was that fun!! After that we did a few smaller tours, recorded the Live in Athens DVD, and most recently played the Rock Hard Festival in Germany.
We come full circle, as I'm currently with Dark Day Sunday, and playing thrash again. As soon as we settle with a new drummer we'll do some touring. We have plenty of songs for a full-length CD, and are currently finishing up some mixes.
I also plan to tour with Fates as much as I can. We always have a blast together, and we sound great with the current lineup (Matheos, Alder, DiVirgilio, Vera, & me).
That's about all for now. Feel free to message me. Unless I'm not online I'm pretty good with responding quickly.
Thanks to each of you for your support, and I hope you enjoy this page.
Cheers.
fa
