I started music study at age 10, first on keyboard and soon after on trombone. I picked up a variety of instruments before buying a junky drum set at a yard sale at age 17.
After high school I studied drums at Seattle Central College with Brian Kirk, and subsequently at Cornish College with Mark Ivester. I was fortunate to play in ensembles led by Jovino Santos-Neto and Julian Priester among others.
I looked at the jazz education that Cornish offered as a vehicle to be better at rock music, and I happily played loud technical rock music throughout my 20s. I tried on almost any genre: pop, jazz, hip hop, electro-rock, hard rock, indie rock, surf, orchestral, folk, dance, experimental avant-garde and free improvisation.
At 29 I had toured the entire US, appeared on a couple dozen studio recordings and performed at most every venue in Seattle. In 2011 I joined a choral art rock duo called Pollens that soon ballooned into group of six fellow Cornish grads. Pollens would eventually sign to a Hamburg label, tour in Germany, Switzerland and parts of the US, and play numerous festivals.
Beyond being a tight family of brilliant artistic weirdo friends, Pollens introduced me to a ton of new music, and I developed a 70s Afropop obsession in my years with the band.
Concurrently I joined a Brazilian forró ensemble called En Canto. I studied Baião and other northern Brazilian styles, from Jeff Busch and Jovino Santos-Neto, and in Brazil from Marcio Baia.
I formed my group Northern Thorns in 2015 to perform my own take on rumba rock and soukous music. Northern Thorns has reignited my guitar playing and songwriting, and it’s been my first time leading my own band since I was 20 years old.
I currently play and teach in and out of Seattle in a wide variety of projects. I’m still in love with the drum set.
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