United States

When i watched my first live concert on t.v. Marilyn Manson was playing, i was like 6 years old and i was like "can I do that!"

When I was five years old I wanted to have a mustache. When hair started growing under my nose I have never completely shaved it off until this day. At age 5 I also knew I would be a bass player. Now that I have accomplished my boyhood dream I guess I have to have something in my hands when I'm not fishing...

When I was about 14, I went to a car show and a local instrument shop had some guitars on display at one of the booths. Music was music, that was fine and all, but what got me hooked originally was that sexy, shiny chrome of the strings and tailpiece on a metalic cherry-red Spitfire-V, the artistic detail, which to a kid my age was more dazzling than the most intricate jewelry. I saved up my allowance along with whatever other money I could manage to earn, and before I had enough to buy one of my own, I found music store called the Doo-Wop shop that rented really nice exotic-shape guitars cheap enough that I could afford on just 1/4 of my regular allowance. I rented a V for about a year while continuing to save the rest and by the time I was 15 I was able to buy a used, near-mint, limited edition pearl diamond-dust Peavey Vortex I for only $480 (at a time when a new one would have carried a $1400 price tag).

It was never enough. As soon as I managed to save up just a little more, I put another guitar on lay-a-way, more like a collector than a musician, although I'd also play them for a few hours every day. When I was 16, dozens of friends were getting into bands in the punk scene, but by that time I was more hooked on more unconventional sounds like industrial, experiemntal music such as Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Einsturzende Neubauten, Lydia Lunch and intentionally poor quality sounds like the Misfit's "Evilive" album. Eventually, the local scene was varied enough for even those styles to become widely accepted and joined in with bands like Skrewdriver and HATE-138. Other friends got me into booking shows and promoting bands, such as Cerebelum, Endpoint, Kinghorse, Crane, Oblong Box, Squirrel Bait, Brain Dead, Hopscotch Army, Veil of Tears, 9lbs Hammer and others. Studio and venue hardware became easy to come by, having a dad that owned a club who'd give me whatever monitor cabinets and mixers were retired fromt he club after any upgrades, so I also got into building a home studio and being one of the first private labels in the area to offer CD mastering much cheaper and at comparable quality to the nearby recording studios. I consider myself an artist and musician, but I've kept it all well-rounded, keeping contacts on distribution, promotions, venues, and since the 2000's, even into cable television and other entertainment industries.

Great thread for my first post!

I first got into playing music when I joined the school band in 6th grade playing the drums.

Over time I realized that I wanted to be the guy writing songs and playing the solos (ala Van Halen or Slash) so I got into guitar a little while later.

I played constantly and the music teacher heard me play and invited me to join the school jazz band. It was blast playing guitar with a full band. Eventually I joined up with a couple other guys and we started my first original band. It was a bass player, a drummer and me and they basically pushed me into also being the singer. Around this time I started getting into bands like the Ramones and Black Flag and writing my own stuff. A lot of my early stuff I remember was basically three chord rock songs with goofy lyrics. But I got better.

I had a few bands going in high school and post high school. Eventually I moved to Boston and I started passing around a demo I made hoping to get a band together there. I got some bites but nothing really materialized. After some bad life experiences and bad relationships happened I started writing solo stuff and doing homemade recordings. I didn't have a live act at this point but I did get my music in a couple of indie movies (nothing huge, but it was satisfying at the time).

Years later I moved to Houston and started playing out solo. Just me and a guitar. Singer/songwriter stuff. I did alright for awhile, played a lot of gigs, put out a couple CDs (again, homemade stuff). Eventually I just burned myself out so I took a few years off from it to do other stuff (writing, painting, stand up).

Now I'm back into music. Writing songs, playing out again. Weirdly I know more musicians now then I did when I was first gigging around. Go figure.

But anyway, that's my story. Hope it was awesome! :p

was it a band,was it a movie,was it you admiring someone that made you want to start playing.the fact of the matter is that we all love this, what`s your story.

I didn't choose it, it chose me.

Skinny women

It was either take guitar lessons or put on a tutu and take ballet lessons..

I heard the lemon song.

I picked up a bass the next day.

Im a singer..i growl (like Corey Taylor) and i guess wat started me in that direction was one day i was on youtube, listening to music. I liked hair bands at the time so I looked up 18 and life-Skid Row. I heard Sebastian singing and immediately was like "i wanna sing like that" so i practiced and practiced..and within an hour or so i got it. Since then my voice got deeper so now i range like Corey Taylor and Wednesday 13

"I was a victim of a Doonesbury blotter, ARE YOU EXPERIENCED and J.Hendrix in general." I then got caught red handed playing air guitar.

I asked myself, "how difficult could it be"?

Some 20 years later, I find myself gaining momentum.
(Mental note to look for soft wall to crash into)

I was forced into piano lessons when I was 5 and started embracing music then in 1977 I was giving a copy of kiss alive 2 then it was on I talked my parents into buying me a drum set it was a used Roads but I played the hell out of it everything from uriah heep to Black Sabbath then in 1983 I ended up back on the paino playing REO, Journey, STIX for some older guys at the time then started taking bass lessons but still wanted to play drums then found some guys my own age that needed a drummer and hair band and heavy metal it was but though the years I've learned to play the guitar to improve my music ability its been a great ride.

John Frusciante and Jimi Hendrix haha, enough said (:

I was trying to piss off one of my buds, by singing at him... When I saw that it worked...I knew what I was born to do...