How was it working with Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston?
Mark is a great guy. Jennifer is a total sweetheart. They are good people, and it became pretty comfortable really fast.
What was the first musical instrument you played?
The very first thing I ever played was the cello in school. I used to walk around the school singing a local TV root beer commercial. Some kids heard me, said they're going to start a band, and would you be the singer? I said sure. They said, "how about if you buy a bass?" I had a paper route at the time, saved up, and bought Eddie Ryan's bass and started playing bass.
How did you become a member of Dokken?
I had just moved to Los Angeles, and a guy by the name of Mike Varney was a dear friend of mine. He and I had just done our first major label record together a couple of years before called Rock Justice. It wasn't very good, but we did it. Mike was known, people would call him to get referrals for bands. Don Dokken called him and asked if he knew a singing bass player.
There were a bunch of metal bands in L.A. when you started out. Is there a band that you thought would be huge, but never made it at all?
There was a band called Warrior that I thought was going to be huge. They were a really good band and were also recording next to us while we were doing our Tooth and Nail record. Their recording was amazing, but they ended up taking like two years to finish that record, and by the time they put it out they were behind the curve.
What were your favorite tours with Dokken?
The two best tours Dokken ever did were the Dio tour in '84-'85 and the Aerosmith tour in '87 and '88. Those were definitely both peaks in different ways. Dio was a great band, and we were learning. We were up-and-coming, but we had a lot to learn, and we did learn. That tour toughened us up a lot. That was at a point when Dio commanded a very loyal, hardcore crowd. It toughened us up, made us a stronger live band, a better unit overall. Plus both bands and crews got along famously. To this day all the guys in the original Dio band are good friends of mine. That was a great period. It was a real magical moment in our career and they were a really great band to be on the road with. We learned a lot and had a lot of fun.
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