Hollywood-based guitar player, award-winning film producer, and one of the founders of the revolutionary new music streaming service that just launched, called Coda Music, which combines full social with music streaming. He has a great story about auditioning for the guitar spot in Ozzy Osbourne’s band and has played countless shows in renowned venues such as Whisky-A-Go-Go, The Roxy, The Troubadour, and The Viper Room. Over the years he has been a prolific session musician and producer, additionally working as a "ghost player" for top charting rock and metal bands, and he has recorded sessions in top L.A. studios.
“We hoped it would capture the energy coming on to the stage there and also by virtue of the intro, it kind of gave our sound guy an opportunity to get the levels all set. So, from a tactical perspective, because you never know, you do the sound check and get to the venue and it's completely different.”
“A friend had introduced us to Ron Bloom and happened to bring him by that day. He was a producer, and he heard that jam session … We didn't even have a name for the band. One of those songs had a part where I simply leaned the guitar up against the amp and let it feed back while I went and got a soda. And he immediately at the end of that session said, ‘I'm in.’ And I remember telling him, ‘We don't have a name yet. Maybe come back in a month.’ ‘No. I can sense there's something in this room,’ and then he came in. I had never seen a producer come on board like that with a project that didn’t even have a name yet. Like that's unheard of. He saw that chemistry in the room and really came in.”
“It was completely a fluke – a fluke in the best possible way, meaning we came together through an affinity of common ground musically. And that's what it's sourced from and that's what people sensed in terms of authenticity. Because you can't make that up. You get together for that reason and it translates to the performance.”
“Everyone told us you can't do that. And my whole mindset was, well, why don't we just think outside the box? So, when I’m told that we can't do that, my mind just goes to, ‘Well we're going to do that.’ And so, we did. And for our first show, we played a Friday at the Roxy, sold out the place. And the very next day Music Connection began doing their one through 10 star review system. So, for reasons I still can't fathom they gave us nine out of 10.”
“Coda Music is a new premium streaming service that combines full social media with music streaming. Now what's interesting there again with the full streaming service is we have the licensing: Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, Merlin. This hasn't happened since 2008 for Amazon, so it's been nearly 20 years.”
“You can do that with our metrics. You can track your momentum so you can see exactly how your songs are performing. You can discover your reach so you can know exactly where your music is getting playlisted. And you can also measure fan engagement. Meaning, you can view your fans’ social engagement with your content.”
“I went and met with them, and it was really cool label started by Art Laboe. And that gave me a chance to really understand the accounting practices, the royalty practices, I understood about Harry Fox, trying to track royalties in foreign territories, and really got a deeper understanding of how the industry worked underneath the hood. At the same time that I was pursuing, doing studio work and performing and doing shows at the same time.”
“I got a call from an Englishman named John Shearer, who was a drummer. Now, as I'm speaking to John and he's telling me that he has the largest drum kit in the world, it just reminded me of what I had been told back east, which is people in Hollywood often have really good stories. So, as I'm listening to this, I'm kind of chuckling a bit and I mute the phone and I kind of talked to my roommate and said, ‘Yeah, this English guy thinks he's got the biggest drum kit in the world.’ Now my roommate goes in the next room, brings out Modern Drummer magazine. John Shearer is on the cover with the biggest drum kit in the world.”
“I remember showing up at a studio, it was in north Hollywood, and knocking on the door and the fella answered the door, ‘What are you here for?’ ‘I’m here to audition for Ozzy.’ So, I go in and start setting up the gear and what's interesting is, as I was setting up the gear, Randy (Rhoads) and Phil Soussan were in the room, and I think I overheard someone say, ‘Hey, if I hear Crazy Train one more time, I think I’m going to puke,’ or something like that.”
“I got a call one afternoon, actually four voicemails, from a guy called Fred Durst, whom I’d never met. But, four voicemails, I thought I should at least give him a shout. And I wanted to really get a sense of how you would name a band Limp Bizkit. I thought that was an unusual name. And I gave him a call, we got together… it was him and Jordan Schur.”
“I would play to a click track and I would, on purpose, tune down to different levels and then play along with whatever was coming on the radio to teach myself how to transpose in the different keys.”
“Confess Me” (The Disciples)
“Walk Alone” (The Disciples)