Video games are big business. As a kid I was a master of quite a few video games. Then I got into music and never thought of combining my musical skills with the creation of video games. Not until a friend of mine, Robert Navarro, put it in my head that I should find an agent get into it.

Robert was busy courting a major agency that represented more well known video game composers. He finally got someone’s ear and landed a spot with the biggest of the big. Being the super helpful dude that he is, he offered to have me meet an agent that was courting him from a much smaller agency. Her’s.

She wasn’t actively looking beyond Robert, but decided to take a chance on me and took me in. It’s one of those moments in a musician’s career that makes you feel real good. To have someone who’s supposed to actively find you work is a wonderful concept. One that was foreign to me.

One of the first gigs she gets me is as a singer for a video game. Not exactly the composing type thing I was looking for, but the pay was good and it was a moment when I got asked to do it, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

The job entailed singing 7 songs on the soundtrack, several with me as the only vocalist and a few that I was to duet with a female singer. She introduced me to the composer of the songs who sent me the demos which included the melodies and lyrics I needed to learn.

Always do your homework before going into the studio. That’s a lesson I can’t stress enough to green musicians. I’m a master of doing my homework for gigs. The music was fun stuff for the game. The melodies were all within my vocal range, but some of the lyrics were a bit out there in left field. Some didn’t make any sense. The reason? They were translated from Japanese.

The fortunate thing is that the composer Norihiko Hibino was more than happy to have me help give some lyrical help so that it wouldn’t be complete nonsense in English but still remain close to their original Japanese meaning.

I got to the session a few minutes early and they shuffled me into the vocal booth. The plan was to record the four songs that I would sing solo, then duet the other 3 with Aubrey Ashburn when she got there. What transpired was a little different.

Because I had done my homework, I sang all the songs including triple tracking all my vocals in various styles in substantially less time than they had allotted to get it done. So we decided to track all my parts for the duets as well. We got all those done before it was time for Aubrey to be there.

The studio engineer at one point joked and wondered out loud where was I 6 months prior when he was tracking a singer singing soundtrack stuff for a Sylvester Stallone movie. I thought about it for a second mentally going over where the studio was in relation to my house and replied, about a mile that way [as I pointed in the direction of where my house was from his studio].

I didn’t really think much about the game afterwards. I never actually got a chance to play it. There are videos of gameplay online. Which is as close as I’ve gotten to playing it. Though I did get a copy of the soundtrack that still sits in shrink wrap.

Once in a while I get a fan of the game who will reach out to me via email or social media and ask if I’m the guy who sang on the game. There’s a wikipedia page for Go Vacation and my name appears on the page. However, I do not have a wikipedia page so it doesn’t link to me anywhere. [If you’re a wikipedia wiz, you should start a page for me.] 🙃

People will tell me how much they enjoyed the game and/or the music. How it was a major influence on them as a kid, those kinds of things. Hearing stuff like that is super flattering. I didn’t compose the music, but I had a hand in bringing it to life. Knowing that it made people feel good to play it and listen to it is a wonderful vibe.

How did I manage to live with a famous singer in Los Angeles? A question I tend to get when people find out one of my good friends and former roommate is Jeff Scott Soto.

Getting disappointed living in Boulder Colorado after graduating from music school, I was looking around for places to go. Two things happened. First, I was still friends with a musician named Julie whom I met at school and we would chat on occasion about music and life. Second, I got an offer from a guy who had a teaching situation that he was wanting to give up in Los Angeles.

Item two gave me a good reason to get out of Boulder. Another reason of wanting to leave was I was having a difficult time finding players that were into the music I was into and had a strong sense of musicality. I didn’t fit in there. Despite loving the area.

Back to item one. At the same time Julie and her boyfriend were living in Florida and wanting to move to LA. I had briefly met her boyfriend the winter before at NAMM and again a few months later in New York. Anyway, he was from LA and she knew the area fairly well.

The plan was for me to meet up with Julie in LA to have help looking for a place to live. Timing wise, she flew out and I drove down. For several days we’d go tooling around the Burbank & San Fernando Valley area looking at various apartments. Mainly for her and Jeff, and by proxy, I might get lucky and get an apartment in the same building to have a couple of friends nearby.

There was one moment of frustration when we were driving south on Laurel Canyon. We were coming up on an apartment complex she wanted to check out, but traffic was rough and she got a tad demanding. I ended up turning too sharp to get into a parking spot and popped my front passenger tire on the curb. FUCK!

There’s a whole story behind the adventure of getting the tired replaced. Maybe it will appear in a book about my life.

The apartment complex where I popped my tire ended up being a bust as well.

A day later Julie finds a condo in Burbank. We go check it out. She totally digs it, but the price was beyond what her and Jeff could afford. Jeff at the time was in a u-haul driving across the US with their belongings and was going completely on her word about the place.

She’s so enamored with the condo that talk comes up of asking me to be a roommate. I liked the location and the condo as well. I decided I’d be willing to split the rent 3 ways and live with them. Jeff arrived a day or two later. We signed the lease and moved into the condo overlooking Burbank and the entire valley.

It was weird being the youngest tenants in what seemed like a retirement neighborhood. It was quiet, it was safe, and we all got along.

That’s how I ended up being roommates with Jeff. The rest as the saying goes, is history.

Based on my upbringing, I’ve never been one to freak out over meeting someone with any kind of celebrity status. Gotta thank my parents and their friends for that. Cause they had some super famous friends and to my sister and I, they were just people.

When I first started living in LA, I was living with a singer that fans of the metal genre would worship. To me, he was Jeff. So yeah, I don’t really freak out. Jeff turned me on to a band called Jellyfish in a big way. He wasn’t the first to get me to listen to them, but he was the first to really insist that I pay attention to their music.

That’s how I became aware of a musician by the name of Eric Dover. Eric was a guitar player and background vocalist for some of Jellyfish’s tours. Any student of the Jellyfish knows you had to be a monster musician to be in that band.

There are stories of Eric going home from Jellyfish rehearsals in tears because they were so hard on him.

After Jellyfish, Eric went on to front Slash’s Snake Pit for a while. Fronted Imperial Drag and a band called Sextus. I admire Eric for his voice, and his tenacity. There’s a quality to his musicianship that I really think is special.

There’s the preamble…

My first gig as a solo artist in LA was at a place called The Gig. Located on Melrose Ave. Don’t bother looking it up, it’s closed down now.

The Gig was a super nice club. Good atmosphere and the people booking it were actually nice. The woman that booked me there liked me enough to give me a decent slot on a Friday night for my first chance. Which isn’t how it normally worked in LA.

My band had the second soundcheck as we were the second to last band on the bill, soundchecks always run reverse order of the lineup. Or at least they usually do. Anyway, we were in the process of loading our gear in and about to be called up to the stage when this guy walks by me, and I think to myself – damn he looks an awful lot like Eric Dover.

“Eric!” I say.

The guy stops and turns around.

“You’re Eric Dover!” I blurt out.

He got a look of being flattered that someone would recognize him and suddenly we’re chatting and geeking out about guitars and music. It was really cool to meet someone who’s musical talent I really respected and he was super cool.

As it happened, his band was the headliner for the night. They had just finished soundcheck and were leaving.

My band and I were getting shuffled on to the stage to do our soundcheck. We got setup, all set to play. The sound guy is dialing things in when all of a sudden thru the monitors we hear, hold up. Looking over to the sound guy he’s scratching his head and says “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… Both of you guitar players can turn up!”

So Chris and I turn up and we finish the sound check.

As I’m getting off the stage Eric comes over to me and tells me how much he liked what he heard. I thanked him for sticking around cause in reality he didn’t have to do that. Usually the headliner takes off and goes to relax somewhere else before they come back for the show.

Inside I was jumping up and down in excitement that a musical hero of mine listened, enjoyed and complimented me. That really made my day. The gig itself was icing on the cake.

What an introduction to my solo career.