Credits / Bio

Growing up listening to my older brothers "Beatles" and Elvis records and being mesmerized by "The Monkeys" on TV, I started dreaming about being a musician early on. Seeing an older kid play an electric bass in the church band (I thought it was a guitar) only cemented that desire. I thought that that bass was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Meanwhile, there was an old Stella / Harmony f-hole arch top laying around the house (also my older brothers') and slowly it started to beckon.

I started taking lessons with two of my best friends when I was thirteen. We had a very good teacher, Gary Marone. All three of us quickly became proficient under Gary and were playing professionally by our last year of highschool. I played my first professional gig in the summer between my junior and senior years and was playing four to five nights a week all through my senior year.

I became interested in classical and jazz guitar styles right after highschool and started in the study of these at Tarrant County Junior College with two excellent teachers, Richard Merbler and Rick Stitzel. Next came a further delving into these areas plus lots of theory and acoustics at North Texas State, renowned for its' excellent music school. The guitar genius of Jack Peterson was a huge influence on me during my time there. During this same period I was still performing regularly with a cover band, but more importantly I formed a song writing partnership with a singer named Devery Henard.

Devery and I wrote a couple of hundred songs. We demoed these using my drum programming, bass playing, and synthesizer skills (all of which I had been developing for a few years). We recorded two of these at a nice studio in Dallas and than took those recordings to the premier studio in Dallas.

The Dallas Sound Lab was the first digital studio in the Metroplex at a time when forty-eight tracks of digital cost about one-hundred and fifty grand. They signed us to a production deal which gave us unlimited free recording time. Typically, they would let us stay in the studio all night and do demos with me doing the engineering. Than they would pick songs from those demos and we would move into the big room and record with a full band. These recordings led to a major label bidding war as to who was going to sign us. Sadly, Devery, whose strong suits were song writing and a "unique" voice, was inconsistent in live performance. After one particular showcase for John Koladner (Aerosmiths' 80's comeback) in which Deverys "inconsistencies" were on full display, word got around about the "live problem". Things fizzled from there, but I had gained a world of studio experience for free and could move on with confidence in my writing, playing and studio skills.

Soon after this I started to question the value of finishing my music degree. I already had five years of professional gig experience and three steady years of studio experience. Sitting in a classroom felt a little ridiculous in comparison. It was time to start making a living. I joined a country band that was gigging full time and started teaching about fifteen students a week. After a year I joined Johnny Reno's band.

I was recommended to Johnny by one of his previous guitarists. I played some of my "Devery" recordings for Johnny and he hired me on hearing those. We immediately hit the road. We also recorded a record "Third Degree" soon after I joined the band. In Johnny's band I pretty much just played guitar for the first year or so. Johnny's music was very different from everything I had done previously and because I was coming from a more rock'n'roll background and because of my formal training in jazz and classical guitar I was considered "suspect" by all the blues "hounds" and the rock-a-billy "cats". I soon won them over though.

From the first, I thought Johnny was a terrific sax player who had great instincts. We formed a tight working relationship and this paid off when Robert Rodriguez hired me and Johnny to compose the music for his second movie "Road Racers". On the band side of things, we traveled extensively and there were a lot of interesting side projects. One period saw the band take up residence at the Red Jacket in Dallas. Every Thursday the band could be found putting down some fine West Coast Jazz in a very cool kind of way. As the crowds got bigger and the band got louder, the"cool" vibe was slowly getting tossed overboard in favor of the swing fad that had started on the coasts and was making its' way to Texas. The shtick got too thick and I wasn't crazy with the "Rat Pack" direction the band was taking, so it was time to take a break.

I was teaching a lot and had saved up some money, so I thought "I'll just do my own project and see what I come up with". I recorded my own record called "Nine Under The Sun" and thought about whether or not to put together a band. Doing a whole record by myself took its' own toll, so I decided to take a break from that and just be a guitarist again. I rejoined Johnny's band (they were changing direction again so I thought "I'll give it a go") and we worked quite a bit for about a year and a half. It was during this period that I played guitar on the "Spy Kids 3D" movie.

At this time, being rejuvenated, "Nine Under The Sun" is again on my mind, as well as many other projects. So here we go...........

Paul