IN THE BEGINNING
I’m from Richmond, Virginia. The son of great parents who gave me my 1st guitar at the age of four. Big mistake! I fell in love with the guitar but we broke-up for a while when I found the sport of diving. By the age of ten I was Virginia State Diving Champion. I then left the diving board for ice hockey (the greatest sport of all time). GO RED WINGS! The guitar came back into my life at the age of 15 and won my heart over.
My first guitar lesson was in the 8th grade. I took a guitar course in school where the teacher taught us basic guitar chords. It was a one hour lesson, once a week for 6 weeks. I was hooked! I went on to take music theory in high school. That was the best course I’ve ever taken in school.
Some of my influences are Stevie Wonder, Simon & Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin, Carlos Montoya, Rare Earth, Peter Frampton, Billy Gibbons, Jimmy Page, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Kiss, Michael Schenker, UFO, Doobie Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Outlaws, Allman Brothers, Steve Morse and the Dixie Dregs, Pat Travers, Eddie Van Halen, Al Dimeola, Allan Holdsworth, Scorpions, Randy Rhodes, Judas Priest, Warren DeMartini and Ratt, George Lynch, Joe Satriani, Steve Lukather, Eric Johnson, Carlos Santana, Neal Schon, and (my favorite guitarist of all time) Jeff Beck.
THE EARLY YEARS
My history with FireHouse begins when my band, White Heat, needed a drummer. We auditioned at least twenty guys. Finally Michael Foster answered the ad showed up at our rehearsal room. He had a green drum set, amazing groove and sang REALLY well. His first song to audition was “Say What You Will” by Fastway which has a swing feel and he just SLAMMED it! What really impressed me was his ability to sing and play drums at the same time. He was given a song list of the 35 songs we were playing at the time and when he came back the next night he knew them all perfectly with harmony parts nailed! He obviously got the gig. That was in 1984.
I used to go out to the rock clubs when we weren't playing gigs. One night I saw a great band called Maxx Warrior. Their singer, Carl Snare blew me away. Carl and their bassist, Perry, sang really well together. I remember thinking, "Wow! If Michael and I could work with those two guys we'd be a really strong four piece band.”
Over time, Maxx Warrior broke-up. Carl changed his name to CJ. I sent CJ some songs that I had written and asked him to sing on our tape. He agreed and absolutely tore it up! We did a show in Virginia with him as our singer a few weeks later and I'll never forget him telling me that after performing live with us that he felt like this was the right band for him. I told him that I knew that he was the right singer for us and I thought we could make it in the music business together. I couldn't believe what a great voice he had. It turned out that he was also a brilliant songwriter and keyboard player.
After we had a tape with CJ's voice on it, White Heat sold our P.A. system, moved to Charlotte, North Carolina and started recording demos in my bedroom. Our band house had a basement where we would mic the drums and guitar speakers, run the mic cables through the air conditioning ducts into my room and record. We’d play hotel gigs at night to make money to pay the rent and bills.
THE NEXT LEVEL
One night in December of 1989, a guy named Michael Caplan, Epic Records VP of A&R, flew down from New York to see our gig. He told me after the show, "You guys are ready for a record deal." I said, "Well it's about time!” Caplan didn't want to change us at all. He saw our vision and I'm forever grateful to him for giving us our first chance in the big league.
We went right into the studio with David Prater as our producer. I learned quite a bit from Prater and he did a great job on our debut CD (and later, HOLD YOUR FIRE). He's an outstanding musical talent who used to play drums with Santana. We found out that there was a trademark issue with our band name, White Heat, so the label told us we needed to change our name. Michael came up with the name, FireHouse and we all agreed on it. We then signed the contract with Epic, and finished the recording of the album.
In 1992, we won the American Music Award for Best New Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Band of 1991. We also scored Metal Edge Magazine's Best New Band of 1991, Young Guitar Magazine's Best Newcomer of 1991 and Music Life Magazine's reader's pop poll Best Newcomer of the Year 1992. Our first album, FIREHOUSE, sold over 2 million copies in the states and our song “Love of a Lifetime” sold over 500,000 singles reaching #5 and “Don't Treat Me Bad” went to #14.
Our second album, HOLD YOUR FIRE, sold almost 1 million copies to date with “Reach For The Sky” getting into the Top 20 and “When I Look Into Your Eyes” reaching #7.
We changed producers for the next CD titled 3. We used Ron Nevison, who is famous for producing and engineering Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, Damn Yankees, UFO, Michael Schenker, Vince Neil, and others. He recorded us live and we did very very overdubs. I learned quite a bit from Ron. He's a world class producer. FireHouse’s 3 enjoyed more success overseas than we'd ever had. We went Gold in several countries in Asia enabling us to take our music around the world.
Our 4th CD was produced by me. It was the first FireHouse album that I got to produce. It's called GOOD ACOUSTICS and we used our favorite engineer in the world, Mark Severns. At the time, Mark was teaching advanced audio recording and mixing at The Full Sail College in Orlando, FL. He is extremely well respected in the industry and very musical as well. He is also a great guitar player so we instantly hit it off. We had some of our greatest success stories overseas with GOOD ACOUSTICS going gold in 6 countries.
I produced our 5th album, CATEGORY 5. We started recording it in the spring of 1998. It's a very diverse album for us and it shows us stretching our musical wings a bit. We went to Japan in 1999 for an amazing tour. Pony Canyon suggested that we record a show so that we could have a live album. We agreed and the result is BRING ‘EM OUT LIVE, our first ever live album recorded one night in Osaka, Japan.
At the end of 1999, as a result of musical and personal differences, we parted company with Perry. In 2000, I produced and engineered our 7th album, O2. This album has been called our best album ever by fans and critics from all over the world. It's a return to our melodic hard rock roots with a 21st century twist. We found an extremely accomplished bassist/vocalist named Bruce Waibel who fit our band perfectly. Bruce had previously played in The Gregg Allman Band for over 10 years, recording on the I'm No Angel and Just Before The Bullets Fly albums. He also toured with The Marshall Tucker Band for 5 years while Gregg was not on the road. I had a great time recording and touring with Bruce, but he departed FireHouse and about a year later, he tragically passed away.
FireHouse released PRIME TIME in 2003. I engineered, produced, mixed, and mastered this album. We had a great time writing and recording it and I believe you can hear that vibe in the music. Everyone went the extra mile to make this recording the best it could possibly be. Michael's drumming is the best I've ever heard him play. He even takes the lead vocal on one track for the first time ever and he did an awesome job. CJ's voice is as amazing as ever. The press gave the album great reviews.
We heard about an amazing bassist / vocalist from Ohio named Allen McKenzie. He was “Geddy Lee" in the best Rush tribute band in the country. He had just finished a tour as the bassist in Jane Lane’s solo band. I contacted Allen and asked him if he’d be interested in playing with us. He said he’d love to and we’ve been working together ever since. His flawless bass playing and mammoth vocals have been our secret weapon for decades. He’s also a really nice guy!
In 2011, we released FULL CIRCLE. For years we had been wanting to go back to re-record many of our favorite FireHouse songs in an up-to-date style. Finally the timing was right and everything fell into place for us to do just that. There are eleven tracks on FULL CIRCLE and we hope you enjoy every single one of them as much as we did recording them.
In April of 2024, we lost CJ. He left a huge mark in the music industry and he also left a huge hole in the hearts of all of us who knew him. He will be forever remembered and missed. His spirit lives on in the music that we created and in all of the memories that we share. R.I.P. CJ. CJ always felt that the show must go on, so while he was recovering from a major surgery, we kept working. In September of 2024, Robby Lochner introduced me to a young man named Nate Peck. Nate is a guy with exceptional vocal talent, range and tone. He had received a golden ticket on American Idol and as soon as I heard him sing, I knew that his voice was a perfect fit. We flew him in to fill in for CJ for New England Rockfest and he absolutely crushed it. I sent CJ some video clips of the show and CJ said, “That’s your guy.” We officially invited him into the band in June and he’s been stunning audiences ever since. Before CJ passed, he gave Nate his blessing and full support.
SOLO TUNES AND SIDE PROJECTS
Singing has always been a love of mine. O2 featured my FireHouse vocal debut on track #7, “I'm In Love This Time”. I sang a couple of songs on our 2003 album PRIME TIME as well: “Holding On" and “I’m the One”. I got some good feedback on these songs and wrote some more songs that fit my voice. In 2004 I released my first side project, WANDERLUST. Michael Foster played the drums and Bruce Waibel played the bass. I am very grateful for the overwhelmingly positive reaction.
In December of 2007, I released my first instrumental album, SOUTHERN EXPOSURE. I played all of the instruments except drums. I brought in Michael Foster and his amazing drumming talent. I had always wanted to put out an instrumental album because I have been influenced by so many instrumental guitarists. The album was received very well and I was able to go out and play a few clinics around the country when FireHouse was off tour.
In June of 2009, I released my first album of cover tunes. After finishing the album I realized that all of the songs had originated in the Southern states, so I named the album DEEP SOUTH after an amazing piece of artwork that my Grandfather, William G. Leverty, had created. The music is very diverse and most of the songs were written in the late 1800's and early 1900's. I'm playing a lot of instruments on this album that I had never recorded before like banjo, dobro, mandolin, lap steel and more.
In 2012, I teamed up with some old friends to record a Back Street Crawler song called “All the Girls Are Crazy”. Jimmy Kunes, Andre LaBelle, Keith Horne and I enjoyed working together so much that we did an entire album and called the group Flood The Engine. I produced, engineered, mixed and mastered the album and we released it in 2013. It’s got a classic hard rock vibe. I’m extremely happy with how it turned out.
In 2013, I also released an album of classic cover tunes that influenced and inspired me in my youth. The album is called DRIVE. I thought it would be a great learning experience for me to go back to the songs that made me want to become a musician. I learned from not only the greatest artists and songwriters of all time, but also from the producers and engineers who made these timeless recordings. Some of these songs were number one hits, and some were songs that were so important to me in my formative years that I HAD to put them on this album. The result is an album that will show you what got me started. I hope you enjoy the DRIVE.
After the release of DRIVE, I wrote a song called called “Ace Bandage”, my wife shot a video for the song, and we had a blast with it. This sparked me to write another 9 songs to complete my latest album, DIVIDED WE FALL. I wrote one song at a time and released each one as I finished it. I really liked doing this way. We shot several videos for many of the songs on this album. The last song that I wrote and recorded for this album is called “Divided We Fall” and that’s what I ultimately decided to name the album.
Since then, I’ve written a couple more songs which will be on my next solo album. “Hey Mama” was inspired by a Caribbean cruise, and “Haywire” is an homage to the most amazing guitarist I’ve ever seen, Mr. Steve Morse. More to come. Thanks for staying tuned.
FAMILY
I found my soul mate on a hot summer's night in 1995. When I first saw her I got weak in the knees and my heart started beating like it never had before. We fell madly in love and got married in April 1996. Her name is Kris. She's my best friend in the world and I can't believe I was able to get her phone number that night. We had our daughter, Dabney, in November of 2001. She's a gift from God. Kris and I are truly blessed to have such a wonderful daughter. My wife, my daughter and all of my family TRULY are my loves of a lifetime.
