Guitarist / keyboardist / vocalist Rick is Shut Up And Drive's solution to the main challenge facing most local bands...sounding the same on every song. It's his versatility that helps separate Shut Up And Drive from the rest of the pack of cover bands in Arizona. If the song needs piano, organ, synthesizer, slide guitar, or even blues harp, Rick can handle it. Of course, his mind-blowing guitar playing is the main attraction, and his exciting, enthusiastic stage presence can transform an ordinary song into a spectacle.

   Rick was raised in No. California. He began learning to play guitar at the age of 13, and taught himself to play by listening to records and picking out the guitar parts. Throughout his teenage years and into the late 70's, Rick performed in several bands in the East Bay and Sacramento Delta area, developing his style from early influences like Ronnie Montrose, Robin Trower, Johnny Winter and Michael Schenker. 

  In the 80s, playing the Bay Area club circuit garnered a following for Rick as a guitarist, and he sold Harley Davidson motorcycles during the day to pay the bills. Impromptu jams with the likes of Mario Cippolina (bassist with Huey Lewis) and Brad Gillis (Night Ranger, Ozzy Osbourne) were not uncommon. His rise to local prominence peaked when he was asked to play in Dorian Mingus' (son of legendary jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus) band Dirty Minds. Dirty Minds recorded their demos at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA and began playing clubs in the North Bay. The reaction to the band's music was instantaneous and explosive, with Bay Area legends like Grace Slick and Huey Lewis attending their live shows. The band was soon signed to Debut Records, a division of Fantasy Records. Unfortunately, internal conflicts dissolved the band before the first album was recorded, and Rick relocated to the mountains of Colorado to seek new musical inspiration.

After searching fruitlessly in Colorado for compatible musicians to flesh out his song ideas, Rick was asked to join a Durango, CO cover band with Australian singer Teena Roemer. The Ozzie Roolz band toured five states in nine weeks, playing casinos and night clubs. The tour ended abruptly for reasons that aren't important to anyone who wasn't there at the time. In December of 1997 Rick left the San Juan mountains for the "dry heat" of Arizona, and retired his guitar for almost four years.

  His next inspiration came from the electronic forms of dance music known as techno and trance. Collaborating with DJ Thomas Dennett of Scottsdale, this duo remixed popular dance tracks with Rick's fiery guitar solos. The result was the KowBoyZ white label mix CD, which became an underground sensation at various Scottsdale dance clubs in the Fall of 2001, culminating in a successful live show in Jacksonville, FL where word about the new sound of KowBoyZ had spread through the underground dance music scene on a national scale. Unfortunately, various conflicts put this phenomenal project on indefinite hold shortly thereafter.

  In August of 2002 Shut Up And Drive was formed from members of several high profile Phoenix bands, and Rick was asked to join. Rick has been overheard saying, "Finally, music for me is fun again. This band has gotten to be so good, so fast, it's amazing!" and his guitar is being unleashed upon the Phoenix club scene like a musical monsoon. Those of you who have seen Rick in action, and wonder where he gets the energy that would have many rockers half his age gasping for air, now you know...the rest of the story.

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