This is a short Bio I've been working on. I think this sums it up nicely and without errors such as on wikipedia.
I was born Jan 11, 1968 in Los Angeles, California and mostly grew up in the city of Irvine, about 40 miles just south of L.A. in Orange County. I remember having an early fondness for music, my first musical memories coming from my Disney 45's and my Dad playing classical and pop standards on the piano at home.
Around age eight I got my first hi-fi system and quickly became an avid rock aficionado, listening endlessly to my Kiss, Rush, Pink Floyd, UFO, Black Sabbath, and Barry Manilow records. Around age twelve my Dad hooked up some private guitar lessons at the local music store, and I quickly started learning songs of the Beatles, James Taylor and Neil Young on the acoustic guitar. An electric guitar ( a black Les Paul copy) followed as a Christmas gift, and from then on I spent hours locked in my bedroom jamming along to my growing record collection. My older sister Gina was already a skilled rock guitarist, and she taught me scales and chords which helped me advance quickly.
I started a band called "Northeast" in 7th grade (age 13 I think) with a couple of friends and we ambitiously covered songs by Rush, Judas Priest, and Scorpions. After that around age 15 I joined my older sister's original Heavy Metal band "Rising", forming a rather unique brother and sister dual lead guitar team.
I was a distracted student in High School- preferring music, fiction, boogie-boarding and D&D over my homework. After High School I studied music theory and composition at Orange Coast College and at Cal State University Fullerton for 4+ years.
During my college years my musical tastes began to broaden to new wave and reggae music, and in 1988 I answered a flyer to play guitar for local OC band called "No Doubt". I helped to add a rock edge to No Doubt's ska sound, and after a number of excellent years playing club shows all around California, the band signed with Interscope Records in 1991. We released our "self-titled" debut CD in 1992, and toured clubs in the United States in vans that summer. After which founding member and primary songwriter Eric Stefani began the process of splitting from the band. This left more of the songwriting efforts to myself, bassist Tony Kanal and singer Gwen Stefani, and in the following years we all co-wrote, recorded and finally released our 1995 commercial breakthrough album entitled "Tragic Kingdom". The album gave birth to a number of international hit singles and went on to sell over 15 million copies worldwide. We toured the North America, Europe and Asia repeatedly for a whirlwind two years before taking a break in late 1997 to write and record the follow up. "Return of Saturn" was released in 2000 followed by more world touring. The next album was "Rock Steady", released in 2001, and produced more hit songs, two Grammy awards and more world touring. In 2003 we performed alongside Sting at the 2003 Superbowl halftime show and released a greatest hits CD entitled "The Singles Collection". About that time we began a well deserved multi-year break from No Doubt's primary activities of recording and touring.
During the break, I produced two albums by singer-songwriter Matt Costa and also toured the United States in 2005 as his bass player, enjoying the opening slot on Jack Johnson's sold-out summer amphitheater tour. I also worked with Ted Matson to score a feature documentary film; "The Providence Effect" released in 2009 . When not doing music I also spent my free time traveling and surfing, hanging in Australia, Indonesia, Mexico and New England with my girlfriend Mieke. We were married in 2004 and started a family right away becoming parents to two incredible boys; Ace born in 2006 and Rio born in 2008.
In 2009 No Doubt returned from hiatus for our biggest concert tour ever in the United States. Presently in 2010, Tony, Gwen, Adrian and I are working together to write and record songs for a forthcoming No Doubt album.
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