Hatebreed needed a drummer and I needed a serious band. I was just about in the student teaching phase of a Special Ed/Elementary Ed degree at SUNY Plattsburgh in Upstate New York. My first stint in Hatebreed was in 1998 and it lasted for about a year. You have been in Hatebreed for years, but you actually quit for a bit to pursue studies and almost gave up on the whole music game. I started wailing on that old drum kit with friends from school, neighborhood kids, etc.

My brain and body seemed to gel well together and I could make sense of it all. I took lessons from a guy named Mike Shapiro at a local music store in my area and I loved it. My uncle asked if I would be interested in drums and offered an old, beat up drum kit of his if I was willing to try lessons and see if I would stick with it. I don’t recall how long I lasted with this but it couldn’t have been more than six months before I quit. Also, she was teaching me “kumbaya” and these other folky type, religious songs that I had no interest in. I was told I was doing it wrong and said I had to play as a righty. First off, I naturally held/played guitar as a lefty. My mother noticed my interest, got me an acoustic guitar and signed me up for lessons with a woman from her church. I was twelve years old and was way into all the early metal stuff… Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Exodus, etc. How come you ended up behind a drum kit? Were you always drawn to drums and were they your first and only alternative? My sister and I used to put on little skits and shows when we were really young, lip syncing to Twisted Sister, Journey, etc. For a short time, my mother worked at a Poughkeepsie based radio station, WPDH, and sometimes the DJs would give me records when we went to visit her at work. My parents’ first date was a Rascal’s show in NYC (they were going by The Young Rascals then). Her youngest brother is a drummer and he is responsible for really getting me into the instrument. My mother’s side of the family are huge Beatles fans and she actually saw them at Carnegie Hall when she was a teenager. He actually wrote the “theme song” for Playland and was the MC at the opening of The Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY way back in the day. My grandfather later was a booking agent and even owned and operated the Funhouse at an amusement park in Rye, NY called Playland. This was in the pre-television era, before these acts made the transition to a larger entertainment medium and became huge stars. They were singers, dancers and skit actors and toured/performed with the likes of Bob Hope, Abbott and Costello, etc. My grandparents on my father’s side were Vaudeville performers. For as long as I can remember, music and performing has always been a constant in my life coming from both sides of my family.

Ezdrummer midi really loud