I don’t recall where or when it happened, but when I got my hands on the first Black Sabbath album… something clicked. Hearing the song ‘Black Sabbath’ sent chills of excitement down my back, and being new to playing guitar it was an easy riff to play. Again, I don’t know where it really started because I love all music. But singing Hard Rock (guitar is mainly to accompany my voice) just worked for me. Hearing Ian Gillian scream or the power of Morrison’s words. I felt something. The Beatles and the Stones were just music to me at this point. They didn’t carry that weight that I felt with this deep, dark music. It somehow got me to look a little more cheerfully at the world around me. It gave it all meaning. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. I was a pretty miserable kid really. I think the breakup of my parents effected me more than I would ever tell anybody. That might have been why I joined the Marines. In hindsight I don’t regret joining the Marines, but on another note after recently talking with one of my Rock Peers I would probably be at their level of success instead of being such a late bloomer. No regrets though.
My neighbor two doors down from us had an old Ampeg amplifier in his basement that he let me use. It was big and LOUD. I would plug my cheap Les Paul copy into it and get the distortion up and I could feel the power. I can’t remember his name anymore, I should because he had a massive impact on me musically. He’s the guy that introduced me to Joe’s Garage, Mad Magazine and Heavy Metal Magazine. He taught me the importance of music and how it can open your soul, your own expression. And that brings me back to Sabbath. My first ‘real’ concert was the Black and Blue Tour at the New Haven Colisium in 1980. Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult. Ronnie James Dio blew me away. He possessed the power and the range that would take me as a vocalist to a whole new level. By the way, that neighbors nephew ended up moving to DC and started a little band called Dag Nasty.
My father was a folk musician. He played Banjo and sang in a group called The Tikis. He later went on to become an English Teacher and also followed his passion for the theater, which I follow as well. I’m a sucker for the theater. (I spent most of my youth singing in plays or hanging out in the music room. My grades were less than stellar.) Both sides of my family have the music gene. I have a family of great singers. When I started singing Metal I wasn’t really encouraged to follow this passion, which in turn, like all rebellious rockers, made me do just that. I don’t want to turn this into a memoir, not at this time, so I’ll skip ahead…
I spent most of my time, when I could, hanging out in record stores. I have fond memories of hitchhiking to Amherst, over the Notch from our house and going to Backroom Records and the Amherst Music House. Backroom Records is long gone now, but when I was a kid this was my refuge. I spent countless hours there. There is something about a College town that is hard to explain. I got to meet many people that turned me on to different ideas and different music. There were protestors and anarchists, philosophers and pot heads. I was once picked up by a music professor who told me why a new band called Sonic Youth was going to change music forever. Stuff like that. Another loner in Amherst who I never got to really know, probably because he’s a loner, was J. Mascis from from Dinosaur Jr. I remember one day walking into the Amherst Music House and my friend Rusty telling me to stay away from the music book section. I guess J. was in ‘a mood’. I just remember looking over and seeing him staring at the wall. Great musician though. 🙂
As I mentioned above I was a late bloomer in the rock world. I never sang with a band until I got out of the Marines in 1986. I moved to Cape Cod and I would sit on the porch and just play my guitar and sing. That’s when I met Donnie Rainwater. He was my neighbor and guitar tech for Johnny Winter. He handed me a cassette, said I sounded like this dude and I should listen to it. It was Queensryche. And that is where the lightbulb really went on. Right there on that porch on Cape Cod in 1986. Yes, I knew I wanted to always really sing Rock, but never really had a band until then. It would be many years before I fully committed to singing, but that’s another story.
Horns to the Sky,
D
