I come from a small working class rust belt town in western Pennsylvania called Sharon. I started playing drums when I was ten, getting free group instruction in the public schools. When I was twelve I started taking private lessons at the neighborhood music store studying rudimental drumming and drumset. When I was sixteen I attended Phil Wilson's Big Band Camp. On Phil's recommendation I enrolled at Berklee College of Music in 1974 where I studied drumset with Joe Hunt and Gary Chaffee, and tabla with Sharda Sahai. I moved to Austin, Texas with a Western swing band in 1978. The rest is history. Other than a year in NYC (where I studied with Bob Moses and spent lots of time in the clubs hearing all my heroes), I've been in Texas for my entire career. Currently I'm taking drumset instruction with Johnny Vidacovich and tabla with Gourisankar Karmakar.


If you want to be a drummer in Austin, it helps to be versatile. Fortunately for me I love all kinds of music. Duke Ellington was right when he said there's really only two kinds of music - good and bad. I've been fortunate to play with some of the best in their respective genres. Truthfully there are too many to mention, but you can visit my music pages where I go into greater detail on my performance and recording credits. Currently you can find me performing regularly with Devan Jones and the Uptown Stomp (blues and jump), Erin Ivey, Jenny Parrott, Forgotten Prophets, and Silas Lowe and the Liabilities. Please check out the recordings on my music pages and maybe buy a CD or a song or two. Thanks very much for visiting my site.


Steve