Singer, songwriter, guitar and piano player who continues to perform with Grammy Award winner and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Billy Joel. At the beginning of June he released a new single and has a new album on the way. He was a guest on this show just over three-and-a-half years ago, back on Episode 150, and among his work since then has been a single that will be on his upcoming album that has a music video featuring actor Kevin James. He also continues to perform with his Billy Joel tribute band, called, Big Shot.
"For a songwriter, in order to really get the emotion of the song across so that when people listen to it they can actually relate to it - not only relate to it, but feel the actual energy coming off the song the way it was intended to be written - you have that kind of situation where you gotta be real. And being real is kind of like airing out your dirty laundry for the world to see."
"Most people who write journals and see therapists, they don't really tell anybody they're doing that. Whereas musicians, songwriters, when we write a song like that, we're, my songs, they're very literal."
"I think when you're the most honest, people will relate the most."
"When I record I love to capture early takes and not kill it, not burn it to death, because I really love capturing that raw energy that's coming out in the vocal, in the lyric."
"(Kevin James) laughed, jokingly, and said to somebody in his office, 'Look at this, the only guy that I would try to get on national TV and he tells me No'."
"This is the one album where I really had lyrics done before anything, before arrangements. And that's never the case with me. I'm always struggling to write lyrics at the end. So that's how I knew this was going to be a real meaningful album, is that so many of my thoughts and feelings were already ready. So it's made the recording process a lot easier."
"You realize now because people will private message and just, how important, I guess, the show was to them and the truth is, was, really, them that was important to me."
"The plans were, we'd be doing stadiums right now and instead of stadiums it's studio, and that's okay because maybe if the stadiums were there, studio wouldn't get done."
"The other thing about releasing singles is they each get to be heard. Sometimes, most songs get lost on an album."
"Back in the day when we weren't fortunate enough to have any money at the time and I was really struggling as a musician to make any money we had lived in a camper in a friend's backyard."
"I know (Billy Joel), he loves music. We love what we do. We're musicians. We don't do it just for the dime. We do it because without it we're lost."
"Mona Lisa"
"Where Do the Heroes Go"
** Bonus content with Mike DelGuidice **