Hi, I’m Rob! I’ve played in cover bands off and on since 1992 when I finally came to the realization that I would never be a rich and famous rock and roll guitar player. I knocked around in a few original projects before settling on covers due to an astounding lack of originality. My influences include most of the 80s metal scene – everything from hair farmer bands like Motley Crue, Poison, Bon Jovi and Skid Row to the heavy stuff that I can’t play in a cover band because it scares people like Slayer, old Metallica, and Anthrax. My first cover band was formed in late 1992, and we called ourselves Chapter 11 (mostly because we were all broke). We played classic rock and a sprinkling of songs that were current at the time by bands like Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots, mostly in bars in Staten Island and Brooklyn. Chapter 11 was my first opportunity to sing and boy, I tell ya, I sucked. I wonder how anyone let me anywhere near a microphone. Luckily for our audience, I was only singing a handful of the songs at the time and those were golden opportunities to run to the restroom or to the bar for a beer. Chapter 11 lasted about two years until…

1995, when I teamed up with a couple of members of Chapter 11 to form RedRum. I was doing half the singing at this point, and I had progressed form horribly bad to somewhat awful – an improvement but still something that makes me question the sanity of my bandmates. RedRum focused more on the current songs of the day, which at the time were played on Q104.3 in New York. Offspring, Pearl Jam, Green Day, STP, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana and Alice in Chains were the hugely popular bands of the day and we made sure we destroyed at least one song by each of those bands. We progressed from bars to some clubs, private parties and even trekked down to a college auditorium in Jersey one night. RedRum lasted two years, and eventually it imploded. I was out of the music scene for a year or so, until… 1998, the year of Basket Case. Yes, we got our name from the Green Day song. No, we were not a Green Day cover band (although we did do several of their tunes). Basket Case was a 3-piece which played current music as well – by this time Creed, 311 and Fuel had joined the ranks of the popular bands so we tossed some of those tunes into the mix along with some great classic rock and metal, and some “classic’ grunge tunes. By this time I was an adequate enough singer to front a band on my own and even play guitar at the same time. We did pretty well around the Staten Island/New Jersey area. Basket Case began to fall apart around the year 2000 when the bass player and I left to form…

Spankin’ the Freak. To date, Spankin’ the Freak is easily my most successful project, and during the 3+ years that the band was together, I progressed from an adequate singer to someone who got pretty good at imitating anyone whose song I was trying to sing. I mean, I couldn’t (and still can’t) sing worth a crap, but I can fake it pretty well. Spankin’ the Freak was a 4-piece, and three of the guys in the band could sing. It gave us a lot of flexibility in song choices. Instead of focusing only on current songs, we branched out into doing party tunes that are well-known by everyone in any age group or walk of life. Combine the fun songs with the popular songs from the early part of the 2000s decade, toss in some great classic rock, and you have a band that was able to please anyone at any time. We played every weekend for over 3 years at private parties, corporate holiday parties, bars, clubs, benefits – we did it all. Just when we were going to embark on a nationwide tour opening for Bon Jovi, there was a debate about which direction the band should go in. I decided I wanted to go my own way, and my ‘own way’ resulted in my leaving the music scene for over three years. Great choice. When I finally decided I wanted to be a pseudo-rock star again, I stuck an ad on Craigslist, lied and said I was a versatile singer, and somehow landed the gig with these guys here, Plain Jane. They’re a great band and I’m looking forward to what the future brings!