I went to Middle Tennessee State University to study music where I majored in theory and composition with classical guitar as my instrument. I enjoyed playing the fiddle as well and was learning tunes on guitar along with my other guitar studies. Soon after, I got my first mandolin and began diving into the instrument. I spent half the time playing it with a pick as if it were a mandolin. What a cool instrument!Īfter that night, I started learning fiddle tunes on a violin that was still at my parent's house. I had seen mandolins in passing before but had never really given it any thought. It was that night too that I first played and fell in love with the mandolin.
What I experienced was a house full of world-class musicians playing the coolest music I had ever heard. My friend told me that it was a bluegrass jam, and all I could think about was the square dancers at Opryland and what I had seen on Hee Haw as a kid. I had no idea what that meant or what to expect. It was on Thanksgiving night my freshman year of college that everything changed.
Even though I was from Nashville, country music and bluegrass were not yet on my radar other than what I had heard from my sister's stereo, on Hee Haw and at Opryland. Toward the end of high school, I started listening to a wider variety of music including jazz, blues, funk and classic rock. I became entranced by heavy metal, and all I wanted to do was play music. It was through my teenage years that I played guitar most of the time and listened to music that I wanted to listen to. I started playing guitar after being introduced to bands like Guns N' Roses, Van Halen, Ozzy, Metallica and Jimi Hendrix. I was raised mostly on classical music but had some rock n' roll, jazz and pop radio to round out my listening experience.
I started playing the violin at age 5, cello at 6 and finally found my path at 10 when I picked up the guitar. I was born and raised in a musical family in Nashville, TN.