[biography] - History
[pre-musician era]      [instruments]      [timeline]


Pre-musician Era
As a child growing up, I didn't have much of a choice of what I listened to. Whatever mom and dad had tuned in on the radio, was what I got. We won't get into that subject too much, *cough* country *cough* but it wasn't pretty! It took a while for me to develop my own sense of music, but before I had done that, Elvis was in fact the King in my eyes. Mimmicking his voice, "thank you.. thank you very much", and shaking my hips insued for many years. So that was my youth... a lot of Elvis, Country, and probably some John Denver folk type songs as well. I think I've pretty much blocked that part of my youth out, but don't go around thinking you can knock "the King" in front of me. I won't have it! Anyways... around this time, me and my brother both got these junior acoustic guitars. Didn't know how to play it, couldn't tell you what note I was hitting, or even how to tune it, but we NEEDED to have em. Eventually, all these guitars did was collect dust. Sad, I know, but the future did have a light in the distance...

All kidding aside, my musical tastes took a turn once I found what was out there. I can't remember my first cassette, or the first band that I liked, but I can remember that it probably was in the middle to late 80's, consisting of big hair, and guys wearing make up. Also somewhere in there, I did listen to Michael Jackson (before he... well... ya know!) and danced to his latest hits. Even to this day, I respect some of the grooves and riffs found in "Beat it", "Billy Jean", and "Thriller". He did good work back then... before he... well... ya know!
Ok, back on track! We were talking about the 80's. As the rise of Aqua Net sales went up, so did my eyes when I saw MTV. The big hair, the tight pants, the guys in make up, and the music. Bands like Poison, Def Leppard, and Skid Row were written all over my junior high school notebooks... well until about the end of 7th grade that is (more on that later). So this is where it pretty much all started. The 80's rock (glam rock/hair metal, etc) scene was what made me visualize and begin concepts of becoming a "rock star" (oh did my parents love this!). Now, while I never wore makeup, or teased my hair up (well at least not yet), I did like the "presence" the bands of the 80's had. Flambouyant, flashy, and energetic. Not to mention, 80's chicks rock! To me, the 80's rock music was what really brought guitarists to the forefront. I think the world now looked at the guitarists of bands in a different way. Guitarists were not just playing notes and chords, they were now stealing the show, even if it was only for that 10 second solo after the chorus. They were getting their spotlight in videos and on stage with their amazing solos, flashy techniques, and energetic playing. They just looked like they were having fun. But as the Elvis inspired days, learning an "instrument" was not my thing. So this would eventually lead to me banging on my mom's pots and pans and empty cookie tins with chopsticks. Again, my parents loved this! So, the 80's only had the Richman playing air guitar and banging on pots and pans. Again it's sad, and while I know you all weep with me, the future still had that light in the distance, only this time, it was much closer.

Now if you remember the "more on that later" subject... this is where it comes into play. I can remember my first CD was Megadeth's "Rust In Peace" album. This was to start the collection of the metal era for me. It wasn't just Metallica, Megedeth, and Slayer... oh no.. they were too weak. I out grew those bands pretty quick. By 8th grade, I had been introduced to explosive, angry, and evil music. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, death metal was in. Bands like Death and Obituary were in my walk man. I decided to take all that energy, and start releasing it (aside from the mosh pits) within the confines of a band. But before I played the part... I had to look the part. Around 8th grade, the world saw the start of my hair growth, and thanks to mom and dad, the chicks didn't get to see it in it's entirety until about my senior year of high school. So, essentially, my hair has been "long" since I was about 12 years old, and was at it's longest when I was about 21, where it would accidentally get tucked into my pants when I'd get dressed for work. It's much shorter now. (yes... again... very sad) Anyways, now that I had the look going, and I had my predominantly black wardrobe, it was time for Rich to join a band. It was time for Rich to become a "rockstar"... But what would he play?


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Instruments
Well, I'm glad there are no tapes of my first venture in a band for that had me attempting to sing. But this section will not pertain to the sounds of a dying cow, but a brief description of how I got started. So my first venture into music, I was a vocalist singing metal covers. But in a few months, I would become a guitarist. Around February of 1993, I got my hands on my first electric guitar, and that's where it really took off. The deal was, I would take lessons, and my parents would purchase the guitar for me. So I took lessons for about a year, and practiced my ass off (mostly avoiding the "lesson material"). With the guidance and help of fellow musicians and friends, my guitar playing grew by leaps and bounds. Even to this day, I have not lost that same passion I had when I learned my first song, "The End Complete", by Obituary. But I had no idea that when I entered the music scene, that I would become enveloped by more than just the guitar.

Since 1993, I've found my way onto the guitar and drums. Even dabbling a bit on keyboards and bass (and if you must know, I sing in the shower!). And now with the computer age surrounding us, I've even managed to learn some basics of sequencing and MIDI. Now what's great about music, is that you can express yourself in ways you cannot sometimes do in other ways. This is what I found to be the best part of music. I can pick up a guitar and write music that moves me, or I can hop behind the drum kit and go wild and release all that wound up energy. This is my world... sometimes it is my hell, but either way, music is something that has lasted the test of time for me. No other hobby of mine has endured this long, and that in itself, is a great feat for me. Now bring on the groupies!


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Timeline
A chronology of simple guy named Rich, turned Rockstar...

[DeathBed] [Mortikai] [Dreamscape] [Somewhere Angels Mourn] [missing in action] [Smooth Harmonies]

The King baby! (1977-1992)
Rich is born; worshipped Elvis; banged on pots and pans; became a hippy

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DeathBed (circa. 1993)
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In 1993, I met a good friend, and bandmate Mike Ramirez. Like the only guy in my grade that I knew that liked death metal... and holy chocolate bars!!!!! he had a band looking for a singer/vocalist/frontman. Well, I won't go into details, but I couldn't sing a note. Sounded more like a dying cow or a cat getting it's tail stepped on to be honest. I was also very shy so I felt a bit out of place having all eyes on me. I don't remember how many practices we did, might have been one. But it didn't last very long. Through my buddy Mike though, I decided to give guitar a try. He told me the essentials of what to look for, I set my sights, and nagged my parents.
Well, I was blackmailed into taking guitar lessons. The deal was, I take lessons and my parents would buy my first setup. Although I didn't appreciate it at the time, the lessons paid off, and I regret not taking advantage of them 100%. My focus was on playing in a band and becoming a rockstar, so I practiced "band" stuff instead of the lesson book material. But if you ask me now, I'll tell you up front... lessons are great! Sight reading is a valuable asset as well as learning the correct techniques. I was lucky that the year I did take lessons, I had a great instructor. Peter Hix. A huge fan of Eddie Van Halen, he wasn't afraid to stray from the lesson material a tad to show me some up beat riffs and techniques not found in "Jingle Bells". Also during the DeathBed era, was good friends Jason Lafleur (bassist) and Tom Fiestamel (guitar). Tom became my mentor on guitar. We'd hang out as much as we could, and he'd show me tricks, techniques and we'd jam and try to write stuff. Between my instructor, Mike, Tom, and Jason, I had a great foundation on learning the guitar. Now again, Tom who was my main influence at the time, was heavily influenced by the great Joe Satriani, and it showed. He was a gifted guitarist, and as I would find out later on, a gifted musician.
So there was my beginnings. I owe alot to these few people who showed me the ropes, helped me out as I needed it, and gave the encouragement to keep me playing. But eventually, DeathBed broke up. DeathBed was short lived, but the bonds made within that band, were not.

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Mortikai (circa. 1994-95)
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Much in the vain of Deathbed, Mortikai was still rooted in deathmetal. We just took it a few steps further. With huge technical death metal influences and a good amount of doom metal mixed in, we created a sound that was pretty unique. We started writing riffs and songs with Tom being the main writer. But the thing about Mortikai that kept us strong was that, there were no rules. If someone wrote a riff, or a song, we were all allowed to add our own flavor or build off of it. Now I must give credit to all the members of Mortikai outside of this brief synopsis.

Bass:
We had Jason on bass, who was very talented at the time, and was being influenced heavily by fretless bass playing. Add a fretless into the rig and I think you already step out of the mainstream of any genre (outside of the fusion/progressive genre of course). With his acquired fretless skills, slaps and pops, and non-linear bass lines, we had some groovin bass lines in the mix. He was a force to be reckoned with, especially with his 18" bass cabinet! That son of a bitch could knock me on my ass! Anyways, Jason also had some experience with the guitar and keyboards so his contributions weren't always rooted on bass. His ideas played a big part on Mortikai and future projects as well.

Drums:
Bob the insane guy behind the kit. Bob had a big punk background. It was evident in his high energy playing. And it was that energy that really made his playing great. With his fast rolls, odd drum beats, and fanatical fills, it gave our music an entirely different taste. His drumming did not sound like a 'deathmetal' band, but more a fusion metal sound.

Guitars:
Myself and Tom played these wicked 6-stringers. Myself being influenced by bands like Death, and My Dying Bride at the time, I found my purpose by writing the slower depressing sounding bits (that whole high school depression thing... ya know). As I was still within my first year or so of playing the guitar, I wasn't really able to come up with great riffs. But I can look back now, and say that what I was writing and playing, is something to be proud of. Tom, as I stated before, had been playing guitar for years prior to us getting together. He taught me loads of tricks, techniques, and nuances for adding flavor to the guitar. He was, and still is in a sense, my mentor. He was our major creative force, being able to piece together our countless ideas, and meld them into songs. And when he added the Roland Guitar Synth GR-1 to his rig, our music diversity expanded even more.

Others musicians and the complete package:
We also had a second bassist for a short while, but it didn't work out to our best interests. But to complete our lineup, we needed a frontman... a singer... a vocalist... something. We got a friend named Dave to complete the lineup. Now that we had a complete lineup, it was time to put our minds together, and work our fingers to the bone. We wrote numerous songs that had enormous depth to them. Technical rhythms, dual harmonizing guitar lines, Jason's off the wall bass playing, and high energy drums came together, or fused together giving birth to a great sound to which we had great responses. We recorded several rehearsals and tried to get our 'demo' out to the public. Of course we were all in high school at the time, so money and time was very tight, but we managed to have a weekly practice with everyone on a regular basis. Tom lived somewhat close to me throughout the years so we were always able to get together more often, and the same with Jason. Myself and Jason still have tapes of those rehearsals around somewhere, and we have been trying diligently to get them hard copied to a computer and CD-R's so that we can keep a library of that stuff. To this day, I don't think I'd ever find a band as free and open as Mortikai was. I was spoiled that my first real venture into a band was that successful on a personal level. I miss those days.
The real scoop: With our lineup of players, and an array of songs, the next step was to get some gigs. The thought of making a demo crossed our minds, and whether it was monetary problems or what, it never did happen, and I look back and hoped that it had. It would have been nice to have a nice clean copy of those songs somewhere. But we ventured out to play some shows. Our first show was to be part of a metal fest in the local area. We had been going to that place and knew the promoter so it was pretty easy to get ourselves in that gig. And we even had a good slot on the bill. Unfortunately, I became pretty ill, and was unable to make the gig. We had to cancel (sorry Mark!)... but a little bit later, in April of 1995, we had our second show lined up. We opened for some pretty big death metal bands at the time. The bill was:
   Mortikai
   Corpse Vomit
   Macabre
   Incantation
I can remember during setup, one of the guys from Macabre came up and was chatting with us. He said he was interested in a guitar processor that had come out recently... the Digitech 2101 DSP. A piece of equipment that I had purchased a few months back (over $1000!!!). The guy was totally cool, and he was eager to hear the sounds it could manipulate. Hell I was eager to play that show!! Aside from being nervous as hell, and shaking, we played a great set. And the cool thing is, it's on videotape!!!! Now if I can just get ahold of a video capture card I could make that footage available online. Anyways.. where were we... that's right the show! I'm sure for the few people that got to the show early, it was something unlike they've ever heard before. There were no real heavy 'death' metal parts, but it did have it's heavy moments. The songs ranged from intricate harmonies, to doom, to fusion, and even an acoustic break with Tom playing a flute on the guitar synth. It had a real renaissance feel to it during that part. And we closed with our favorite song, which was the basis of Mortikai's existence (in my opinion). The song was called "Through Constant Changes" and it was originally 100% Tom's writing, but as I said, he brought it to the band, and we added our own flavors to it. It opens with piano and strings then breaks into a heavy part and goes through numerous shifts in styles. The song's title fit perfectly, cause it too, would go through many changes from Tom's original vision... but none subtracted from the concept. All future versions added to it in ways even we couldn't imagine.

The demise:
I really miss Mortikai as a band. But with all things, there must be an end. We parted ways soon after that show. Dave and Bob were unable to keep up with the heavy demands I think the rest of us wanted. Devotion was one of the things that Tom, Jason, and myself had when it came to music. And it was that same devotion that sparked the next time span in my life...

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Dreamscape (circa. 95-96)
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Founded by the remaining members of Mortikai, we set off to keep the same feel as the previous band, but to make it more ethereal, add more ambience, and take the music even further than we had already taken it. And again, the song "Through Constant Changes", was a band favorite. At this time, Tom still had his guitar synth, Jason was still on fretless bass but he soon grabbed an acoustic bass and a nice keyboard. I as well got a nice Ovation acoustic/electric guitar and we started off writing. This time the songs took a very different sound. We kept some parts of Mortikai and incorporated them into the new sound, but to the general listener, it would appear as two totally separate entities. But the sounds and essentially, the sound scapes we created, were really intense. I was dabbling around with the weird swells and arpeggiators on the Digitech, Jason and Tom were using alot more classical instruments in their synth playing. One person described the rehearsals we recorded as something he would hear on the Discovery Channel. The songs themselves were just layers and layers of swells, pads, classical instruments and instrumental effects. Some songs did have electric guitar and some heavy parts, but no where near what we had been playing before. We just found a direction unlike anything we've heard, and was driven to create great music. And we did. Jason and I have been doing what we can to get these long lost tapes hard copied, and eventually on the internet.

A little bit down the road, we picked up a female vocalist, Shannon. We kept the music somewhat the same, but toned parts down a bit where vocals would be placed. The songs during that time could be described as a gothic, ethereal or emo music. It was very somber, somewhat depressing in tone, very mellow but yet still had a lot of depth. I can't leave Joey out of the picture either, he was our man behind the mixer during rehearsals and recordings. He was the guy making sure we were panned correctly and made sure our volumes were even. Dreamscape was another great step in my dream to become a musician, but it didn't last as long as I had hoped. Dreamscape began to lose its luster. Me and Tom wanted to keep intricate and odd ethereal music with the occasional guitar line. We just didn't have the same spark we did when the vocals were added to the mix. We continued to jam on occasion, and would reflect back on the days of when we first started out. Who could forget such great friends, great musicians, and great music surrounding one's life? I can't.

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Missing In action:
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There was a period of about 2 years after Dreamscape where I didn't do much but go to college, work full time, and play guitar. Guitar consuming most of the time of course ;) I still think those were the years that I was at the height of my playing as far as a guitarist. I studied and learned techniques from fingerstyle guitar, to two hand tapping, exotic scales, and speed picking. I was also diving into the new age guitar scene a bit which I think was the spark for a solo project. That will come later though. But it was this time of MIA, that my old buddy's band was looking for a drummer. You all remember Mike right? Everyone say "Hi Mike!". It was towards the start of 1997 and his band was looking to play a show, but every drummer they had tried out, didn't work out for whatever reason. My guitar playing continued on through this period, but I never knew that drumming would envelope me. And now I bring you to the next mark in the timeline.

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Somewhere Angels Mourn (circa. 1997)
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Somewhere Angels Mourn (SAM) was founded by Mike. During my hiatus, Jason had paired up with Mike bringing his fretless and keyboards to the mix, and they had found Joy, a female singer. SAM was rooted on emotional music, with some metal in there. They needed a drummer, and they were lucky enough to have a spare drumset. Well, enter me and 3-4 months prior to their show!! Well, I practiced the drums diligently, and put forth a huge amount of effort to learn those songs in such a short time. And it worked! SAM played a successful show playing along side some other local bands at the time. It's rather unfortunate that Mike's sister had brought a video camera, but the batteries weren't charged or something so NO VIDEO FOR YOU! I had such fun being behind the kit and putting so much energy into the music. Ever since then, I haven't been able to quit the drums, and at times, I play the drums more than I play guitar. It's just a great release to be so physical, and still part of the music. From then on, SAM has had a strong foundation in Mike and Joy. But do to scheduling conflicts we weren't able to support future gigs, nor were we able to make it into the studio. We did however acquire a bassist Pat (his real name was Mike but we called him Pat cause his fretless bass playing sounded like Patrick O' hearn) and we tried to find a drummer to complete the lineup. And let me guess, you all are thinking "well if they were looking for a drummer, what was Rich doing at this time?" I had moved to guitar and *gasp* guitar synth! After seeing Tom's for so long, I had to have one hehe... but yes, I made the move to guitar to fill some gaps and add some harmonies. SAM continued writing in this lineup without a drummer, but on songs that we had previously written, I would drop behind the kit to place some beats. At this time, I was getting really into the progressive rock and metal music scene with bands like Fates Warning, and old favorites like Cynic and Rush. So not only did my guitar playing take a turn, but so did my vision of the drums. I would try to add elements of progressive music into the mix but often didn't fit. I eventually went back to fulltime drummer for SAM. I also was focusing my guitar playing and music writing on a solo project idea that had been floating inside my head. Eventually (circa. 1998), creative differences again, led me to take a step back, and I focused more on my writing and my solo project. But SAM is still going to this day, a story which will continue on in a later chapter... well, the next chapter really, but who's counting?

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Present Day, and Smooth Harmonies:
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Although I still jam with SAM every now and then... there's a new tick mark in the timeline.
Progressive music... it is such a good thing to hear fresh music like that. That has been my focus the past few years. Not only in my listening, but in my writing. I've been learning fusion and jazz drumming, and my favorite drummers reside in progressive rock/metal bands. My guitar playing, has taken a step back from learning all the hot flashy tricks (though I will get them back soon) and learning to arrange songs a bit better than what I'm used too. I'm learning to develop a sense of rhythm in my guitar playing, and learning to develop some freestyle and groove in my drumming. I've also been listening to alot of bands with great frontmen like Queensryche and Fates Warning to develop my voice. I've also picked up the keyboard over the years, took a basic course in piano playing at the local college and have been using that in my current music as well. That leads us to Smooth Harmonies, the place that you are now at. This was an idea I've had for many years, but never got around to it. Smooth Harmonies is a place I wanted to create as a home for me and my music. I think that idea has finally come to fruition. I hope you all have enjoyed reading the early parts to Smooth Harmonies, and more directly, this biography section. The sections of Smooth Harmonies are a bit lengthy, but that's because I feel so passionate about music and I sometimes ramble on without end, describing in detail my life with music. And with that, I will close with a bit of inspirational dialogue:
I think it's important to have dreams and to hold onto them. My dream is to create words and music that people won't forget, including myself. I'm currently living that dream, but have yet to share it with others. That time will come soon, and I hope that whoever is reading this now, will be there to share in my forms of expression. Live your dreams, no matter what the cost, no matter what pains you face, because there is nothing like it in the world. Hold onto your dreams, and I will do the same, and I'll see all of you again one day.
Peace!

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