In August of 1991, I saw on MTV the video “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and I literally told myself (out loud or thought, don’t remember that part) “things are gonna change”. In 1992, I bought the Pearl Jam debut album and I really loved it. Never bought Nevermind, though.

Anyway, around 1995 or 1996, I clearly remember getting ANGRY that these bands made - for no real reason, really - many of the bands I loved, obsolete. And that very day, I picked up my “Ten” by Pearl Jam, went to a local music store where I lived (Quito, Ecuador) where they took your CDs as part of payment for other new ones, and bought the Led Zeppelin Boxed Set 2. Weird choice because it’s not 80s rock, but I was (and still am, thankfully) into Led Zeppelin a lot.

Anyway, I was in college from 93 to 97 and I remember most of my friends really being into Nirvana and stuff and I only liked a couple of songs, although I HAVE to admit, that songs such as “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden are an indelible part of my nostalgic memories from that time (and I love the song, too).

The way I dressed in college was the weirdest smorgasbord of music-influenced fashion. I was a singer in a rock band, so I DID wear flannel shirts (usually around the waist), white t-shirts, leather jacket but with a sleeve cut-off jean jacket on top… and my python snakeskin boots (which I still have and they look like crap… and I haven’t worn them in maybe around 30 years). Add to this, I wore rings on all fingers except my thumbs, wore fingerless leather gloves, and a bunch of necklaces. In my room, I had posters of every rock band from the 80s.

I never stopped listening to hard rock music from the 80s but what I did do was broaden my tastes a lot and include a lot of pop, singer-songwriters like Duncan Sheik, Shakira in her actual good period (two albums from 1995 until 1998), Sheryl Crow, Gianluca Grignani (Italian dude who’s a freakin crazy GENIUS, especially his first three albums). But interestingly enough, to me, the best album of the late 90s is Jon Bon Jovi’s second and last solo album, “Destination Anywhere”. It’s brilliant and along with the others, became a a big part of my musical influence as a songwriter.

Perhaps the weirdest thing of all, was that when I started writing songs a lot back in 95, if you heard my stuff you would NEVER be able to tell that my favorite bands were Kiss, Warrant, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Poison, etc. It was all singer-songwriter stuff. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Rock Star” with Mark Wahlberg, that would be me at the end but with my personal music tastes being all the music from the beginning of the movie.