In 1989, I started my own band, The Girth. I played guitar, Al Schwartz and then Ray Perrone played drums, Bill Lillard played bass and did most of the singing, and Tom Linehan played keyboard. I started writing and singing some of our songs. We played several parties and a few local places that hired bands. The Girth lasted about three years until Bill's dad died and he had to take over the family business.

I then started the Liberators in 1994. This was a three piece, hard rock band meant to emulate the power trios of the late 60s and early 70s. We played classic rock including some Hendrix and Cream tunes as well as several of my originals, which I wrote specifically for the power trio. The Liberators started with me on guitar and vocals, Al Schwartz on drums, Jerry Molzen on bass. Al was active in the local Harley Owner's Group, so we played a bunch of biker functions and other parties. We also played occasionally at the local watering hole known as JV's in Falls Church, Virginia.

Meanwhile, I also wanted to broaden my musical horizons. In the fall of 1997, I hooked up with Thierry Sagnier who had played dobro in a blue grass band and recorded with Emmy Lou Harris several years prior. He had recently taken up the pedal steel and wanted to get into song writing. He had several sets of lyrics that I added music to, and we began co-writing more tunes. Within a year we'd added a bass player, Crystal Rose, and Rich Forsen on keyboards.

Over the next two years Thierry wrote several more tunes, a few with Rich's help. We recorded 14 original tunes that Rich did all the engineering on; 12 of which we put on a compact disc titled "Say Goodnight." We played with a couple of drummers, Bob Shook and Nate Oliver, in the process. Being essentially a writing and recording project, this ensemble played a total of five gigs over the course of two years. We used at least three different band names: Messenger, Soul Pursuit and Idylwood. Thierry and I played several open mic gigs; Crystal and Jen Michie joined us on another occasion; and Crystal and I sat in with a couple of the local bands when they were in need of help.