I sort of fell into it… For about a year, I had been playing the acoustic guitar alone in my bedroom, just writing love-sick songs like any 13-year-old would, I guess. The thought of playing in a band had never even crossed my mind at that point until one day when I came home from school to find my brother Tony and his friend Flavio standing outside our garage.
As it turned out, Flavio had been renting some industrial space to a band who was using it for rehearsal. Apparently, they had not paid rent in a number of months, so he decided to stop by one night and surprise them. He wanted to see if he could collect, but what he found instead was half their equipment already gone. That's when he realized they were trying to take off and stiff him for the money.
He decided that he was going to take the remaining equipment and hold on to it until they paid him what he was owed, but he needed somewhere to keep it in the meantime - my garage.
When I arrived home from school, I said hello to both of them and asked what was going on. That's when my brother opened the garage to a sight I had never seen before. There was a full drum set, bass amp, bass guitar, mic stand and microphone, guitar amp, and an Ibanez Destroyer.
I had never seen a guitar like this before, and it was definitely foreign to me since I’d only ever played a black Fender acoustic that belonged to my brother Jimmy, affectionately known as Black Betty. So here I am, 13 years old, and I can feel my blood beginning to boil with excitement and possibility. After standing there for what felt like an eternity looking over every piece of beautiful equipment that was now sitting less than 50 ft from where I slept, I looked at my brother and Flavio and asked, “Can I use this stuff or what?”
Flavio just smiled and said, “Sure, just don't break anything.” I can't even begin to tell you how blown my little mind was at that moment.
I immediately got a hold of my buddy Paul Caruso who lived down the street from me and told him to come over to show him the treasure that I now had in my possession. When he arrived, he was just as shocked as I was, and the first thing he said was, “We should start a band!” I had no idea how to do this because I had never played with anyone else, but Paul seemed confident that we could pull it off. I would play guitar, and he would play bass; we just needed a drummer. We started talking for a little while, and then Paul remembered another kid on our street named Rich Pulcini, who apparently could play drums, so we walked around the block to his house and knocked on his door. He came outside, and we all talked for a few minutes and explained the situation about the equipment and our plans to start a band. I had never even met Rich before, but within a matter of minutes, he was on board, and we had a plan to start making music!
The first day was absolutely horrible. I don't know what else to tell you. Pure Noise. Pure exhausting noise! On top of that, I kept getting shocked from the concrete floor in my garage every time I dropped my guitar pick and tried to pick it up. Even though we made a ton of noise and never actually made it through a single song, it still felt like fire in your veins. A major headache for sure, but also fire in your veins, baby.
Luckily, I had really cool parents and neighbors who were just happy we weren't out getting ourselves into trouble, so they had no problem dealing with all the noise coming from our garage that summer as we hammered away trying to become a band. My next-door neighbor turned out to be a bass player and would stop in occasionally to give us some pointers. He was also a construction worker, and when we told him our band name, he surprised us with a concrete placard with it etched into it, STONE ANGEL.
That first band didn't last too long, but that summer we practiced every day and put on small shows in my garage for neighbors and friends who were just out for a walk and would stop by to listen. We felt like gods.
Like I said, I had never even thought about playing in a band before this point, and now I was having a core moment in my life. An experience that would change everything for me. I often wonder what other paths I might have taken instead if that band had just paid their rent?