Biography

I began playing guitar at 14 years old (1989) however I still remember an even earlier time in my life when my sister (and best friend) and I would sit in our living room with a tape recorder and a mix tape made from recording songs off the radio, transcribing lyrics to our favourite songs so that we could later sing them together. 

My sister, Annalisa, who was only 2 years older than me, was my first and biggest influence because she was ‘the’ musician before I ever touched an instrument or sang a note. She could play piano by ear and could sing lead and back vocals with such natural talent and even won the 2nd place prize in a local singing competition. I looked up to her for having the talent and the courage to perform live and was proud of her accomplishment!

I was very shy (I still am!) so I refused to take music lessons when she did but I enjoyed eavesdropping on her lessons and listening to her singing and soon enough I jumped into the world of music myself. Together we made a great team! A ‘duo’! We sang music from bands such as Queen, Def Leppard, Aerosmith, Whitesnake, Europe, Van Halen, The Scorpions, Genesis, The Police, Foreigner and so many more!

In 1989 I took up guitar as did a few of my friends, and in 1991, although I had learned lots from guitar magazines and books, I took music to the next level and made it my college major. I learned theory, history, participated in the school choir, and even touched on classical piano and jazz guitar. That same year I wrote and recorded a handful of songs that included my sister on back vocals. I was hooked! Things were going well!

In 1993 however, Annalisa was tragically taken from us. She was only 20 years old. For 10 years we believed her death to be accidental due to an electrical fire in our new home. It was (and still is) difficult for us as it was unexpected and because we were so close as a family. To make things worse, almost 10 years later we discovered that she actually died at the hands of a deranged serial killer (who later took his own life before going to trial) and who shall remain nameless on my website as I don’t want to give him that satisfaction… even though he’s dead! The pain from losing her was still relatively fresh but just as we began to deal with it, this new revelation brought it all back again and once again changed the course of our lives.

Although I remained a musician and I continued to write and record music, I took a travel course and started working for an airline since I believed this line of work would help us travel to Italy often since that was where my sister was laid to rest. In fact, to back up a little, in 1993, due to my sister’s death, my family planned to move to Italy since most of my family lived in Italy and since we didn’t have much family left in Canada that could house our remaining family of 4 for whatever time it might take to repair our house. Our insurance company only offered a few hundred dollars to cover the cost of some clothing and motel rooms but didn’t offer anything more since the death itself was originally somehow ruled as ‘self inflicted’ since my sister had some religious material in her bedroom (she was a cathecist in our local church). For them, this was conveniently suspicious so they opted to call it suicide which meant they didn’t have to pay. For those of you who think we somehow cashed in on this … that was most definitely not the case, in fact, we continued to struggle financially for many years and eventually even lost the house.

But back to ’93, my dad had stayed behind while we left for Italy so that he could keep working and to oversee our house repairs hoping to eventually sell and to join us in Italy. This was a very difficult time. After 3 months of being away from my dad however, we were forced to come back to Canada as the police had not concluded their initial investigation (the ‘accidental-self-inflicted death’). The four of us (mom, dad, brother) slept in the basement of our home since our two top floors still had smoke and fire damage and a huge hole between my sister’s bedroom and our dining room. The combination of water, fire, smoke and all around burn was horrible. In time, we eventually completed the repairs thanks to the house contractor stepping in to help but as I mentioned, we lost ownership of the house (to the contractor) and we continued to live there (paying rent) for a little while before finally moving out.

Life moved on somehow. I started seeing someone, eventually got married and tried to make the best of things. My airline work experience included working at the reservations desk, the airline’s medical department, fighting for workers rights as a union representative, Information Technology, and eventually Fraud Prevention.

That career path lasted 22 years and although there were many ups and downs, I enjoyed what I did and met many good people (and some not-so-good ones too… to be honest). I eventually got divorced (albeit amicably) in 2002 and started seeing someone new in 2004 and even remarried again in 2018. Musically: I was always active and participated in multiple bands and projects as a guitarist, a bassist, vocalist, and even a guitar-synth/keyboardist, but music was basically a hobby at this point as my income came from the travel industry.

In April of 2019 however, I lost my job and although I was upset that 22 years of dedication had come to an abrupt end, without hesitation I jumped head first into music… my true love! Losing a job that took up half my lifetime took considerable effort to adjust to but it’s nothing compared to losing my sister in 1993 or losing my dad to cancer in 2011.

I was not going to let ‘losing my job’ be another negative experience in fact, I felt an awkward freedom, like an opportunity had finally been awarded to me since I would never have left the company on my own. But… with a good severance package and a decent pension I was finally able to follow my dreams! I’d have to be crazy to be upset at that!

So that’s my story and literally a few days away from the end of 2019 (December 21st 2019 to be exact), I completed and released my first full album titled: Steady Invasion, an EP titled: Almost there! (both available in all online stores), and an online guitar/music course (Guitar – Absolute Basics) available through Udemy, and I can honestly say that I am grateful for the opportunity to complete a few lifetime goals, to learn new things about the music industry/business, to compose lots of new music, to improve my guitar playing, piano playing, voice… and most importantly to get my health in order and to spend time with people I care about! Who can ask for anything more?!? I’ve accomplished all my goals in 2019 and I’m now excited about the future!

Thank you for the opportunity (you know who you are) and THANK YOU to friends and family for continued love and support! ❤️

Feeling blessed!

Frank 🙂