Music has been a part of my life pretty much all my life. My dad first introduced the guitar to me at an early age, however, I wasn’t “fully” committed to what this instrument had in store for me as a future musician. It wasn’t until I hit high school where a group of my friends & peers started forming bands together. I had already been apart of the school band as a drummer but I quickly knew this wasn’t for me. So that is when I picked up the guitar and started to learn. Now, you can imagine, a fifteen year old boy, social media was vaguely starting to come around, no YouTube to be able to search “how to play guitar” hahaha. However, my dad was my first teacher. He taught me everything I know. I joined my first hard rock band and it was a great experience. I learned a lot and it was great being able to headlining one of the biggest venues in Philadelphia (The Trocadero). But unfortunately, not all bands stay together forever. We disbanded for creative reasons as well as heading in different directions as musicians. A year later I met a drummer from New Jersey and we formed a metal band (yes, totally different genre HAHA). One of my fondest memories was being able to record our EP in Ohio for a week. My first time traveling with a band. We had a blast and I felt like a professional musician for the first time in my life! However, like I stated above, unfortunately sometimes bands don’t stay together forever. We disbanded and I was at a stand still. Did I want to look for another band? Did I really want to start over “again”? Or at times I thought, did I even want to continue playing music? Is this the end?......Sometimes things just fall in line and an idea came to me one day. Why don’t I just write my own music? I had an acoustic guitar that I rarely use to play so I picked it up and started to put some chords together. I eventually invested in some cheap home studio equipment and produced my first EP in 2012 ‘Truth Be Told’. Being mostly a rhythm guitar player in my previous bands, I wasn’t use to being the center of attention on stage. It was scary at first to say the least. I’ve always been a shy kid so stepping on stage and performing alone in front of people felt like a crazy thing to do. But, I’ve grown to love it and being a solo performer has probably been the best decision I’ve made in my music journey. Being able to perform on stage, having people react to my music and even come up to me and tell me that my message in my lyrics speaks to them in so many ways. Knowing that music can touch someone in a certain why or even at times save a life is amazing! Music has helped me through a lot of ups and downs in life. To be able to write music that people can relate to has to be one of the greatest gifts in the world. I’m forever grateful to be a musician and to share my music with others. I use to think that selling out stadiums and going on full world tours meant that you were a “successful musician”. For the last year I’ve been playing cover gigs along with throwing in my originals here and there. Now that I have some revenue coming my way from those gigs, I feel happy with where my journey is at this point of my life. Is that success? Does happiness within yourself about where you’re at in life equal success? I don’t know but what I know is that I feel I’m at my highest point in my music journey. I’m just riding this wave of love, positivity and hope! Thank you all who continue to support me and my music. You’ll forever be the reason I continue to do what I love.
Anthony