BIOGRAPHY
My fixation with the guitar started years before I ever learned how to play one. I just loved the way guitars looked, especially my dad’s Stratocaster. I remember turning the tuning pegs way too far in both directions, listening to the strings climb and drop in pitch. I had no idea what I was doing. I just thought it sounded cool.
I started playing guitar when I was 13 after walking into my brother’s room, picking up his guitar and pretending I knew what I was doing. That Christmas I asked for one of my own, and that was pretty much it.
I spent the first few years teaching myself, learning songs by ear and figuring out chords, melodies and whatever sounds caught my attention. I grew up listening to players like Eric Johnson, Buckethead and Paul Gilbert. All completely different, but all guys who made me want to understand what else a guitar could do. Tone, melody, technique, weird sounds, fast stuff, slow stuff. I was into all of it.
Eventually I started studying with instrumentalist Ron Jarzombek, who had a huge influence on me. Ron opened up a completely different side of playing and pushed me way past what I had been figuring out on my own. Later, I studied with Grammy Award-winning producer Michael Morales at San Antonio’s Rockstar Academy, which gave me another perspective altogether, not just on playing guitar, but on writing, recording and making music actually work as a song.
That road eventually took me to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where I spent my time on the music scene studying, writing and playing alongside musicians from all over the world. Berklee was great, but a lot of what shaped me happened outside the classroom too. Playing with different people, chasing sounds, writing bad songs until they got better and learning how much there still was to learn.
Since then I’ve played everywhere from bigger stages in Texas like Trees in Deep Ellum to small rooms where the crowd is basically standing on top of your pedalboard. In Nashville, I’ve played The Basement, The 5 Spot, DRKMTTR, East Room, ACME Feed & Seed, The Cobra and other spots around town. Those are the rooms I love. Loud amps, close crowds and no place to hide.
Nashville is home now. Most of my time is spent writing, recording, producing, playing live and working with other artists. I’m still influenced by the guitar players I grew up listening to, but I’m not really interested in sounding like anybody else.
I just want to keep finding sounds that make me stop and go, “what the hell was that?” Then figure out how to make them my own.