At the age of fifteen while playing in the opening band at a bar in Wisconsin (on a school night), I was curious why the headliners sounded great and we sounded like s**t. I was determined to achieve sonic quality for my band and, at the same time, I wanted to make sure that some wise-guy engineer couldn’t lie to me. I, therefore, began to study electronics and physics in high school and fell in love with music.
The band broke up; I went to college; and after two semesters, I felt a gaping hole in my life without music. I dropped out of college and tried to explain to my family that I was going to move to California to learn how to make records. In 1986, I moved to Los Angeles and got my first assisting job at Warner Bros./ Amigo recording studio. My first session was with Paul Simon and Roy Halle doing all the vocal overdubs on Graceland. My second session was with John Denver, producer/engineer Roger Nichols and Elvis’ band. I pulled off the hat trick by working with David Lee Roth and Ted Templeman on my third session.
A year later, I became Michael Wagener’s engineer on a plethora of 80’s hard rock records. I went on to freelance and worked with many great producers and artists such as Bob Ezrin, Al Kooper, KISS, Suicidal Tendencies, Alice in Chains, Alice Cooper, B.B. King, Miles Davis and others. In addition, I worked on major feature films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors, The Hidden, Color of Money, Siesta, Decline of Western Civilization II, and Children of a Lesser God.
As 2001 rang in, owner Alan Kubicka and general manager Hank Neuberger offered me a position at Chicago Recording Company. CRC is an amazing world-class recording studio. CRC is a complex consisting of several music and production studios with state of the art gear including SSL, Neve, Euphonics, Digidesign ProTools, and a DVD lab.
After realizing that Chicago lacked opportunities and vehicles for new songwriters and bands to get to the next level, I officially launched Stonecutter Records, a full service production company and independent record label. Stonecutter Records exists with the idea that possibilities are endless. Whether helping emerging artists get to the next level, or assisting with the continued success of established musicians, Stonecutter Records is a valuable asset for musicians at any level. The first major project, entitled Acoustic Chicago, focused on smaller acoustic songwriters from the Chicagoland area that deserved to be heard. I have worked long and hard on finding the some of the finest artists, most of them unheard independents, to represent Chicago in the musically diverse way that it should be.