I was featured in Mike Varney's "Spotlight" column in Guitar Player Magazine in 1985. He and I immediately began discussing my doing a CD for his record label, Shrapnel. One day, he called me to ask if I would be interested in playing on a record he was doing with a metal band called Vicious Rumors. After hearing their demo tape, I was interested in recording with the band. I thought that they had some great songs, the majority of which were written by talented songwriter and leader of the band, Geoff Thorpe. They also had a great singer named Marc Tate, but Vicious Rumors was definately, for the most part, the brainchild of Geoff. And so, Geoff and I talked a couple of times, and I then headed out to San Francisco with my guitar to check it out.

When I got there, we began rehearsing the tunes with new singer Gary St. Pierre to get ready for the recording. I lived with Geoff and his girlfriend where their living room floor would be my bed for four months!

I was really excited about the band at first but unfortunately, my feeling started to change. I was originally told that this process would take three to four weeks, but things began to drag out for months, and I became more and more impatient. (Patience is not one of my strong points! The Italian in me, I guess.) Then again, living on the floor is not something that makes one feel very patient anyway.
Besides things taking longer than anticipated, the band was beginning to grow in a different direction than was displayed on their demo, which I had really liked. I was not moving with them and so at some point, I realized that it inevitably was not going to work out as a permanent thing.

I haven't talked about this record for a long time. Many people feel that this is because I quit the band and I have a problem with Geoff or the other members or something. This is not true! Yes there was a little turbulence for a while, but I have no bad feelings for anyone and still consider everyone a friend.The truth of the matter is that I just wasn't happy with my playing on the record. It was not by any means an accurate representation of my playing at the time and I was actually kind of embarrased because of this. I had about two hours to record all of my rhythm guitar parts, and three hours to record all of the leads and melodies. I had high hopes and was in the end disappointed that I just didn't reach my potential on the record.

It is what it is, though. I was really young, 19 or 20 at the time, and it was a great learning experience for me. It was inevitable that I would go on to pursue a solo career. Vicious Rumors made some great records after I left, and I really believe that we were both better off in taking our own paths.