I mostly grew up in Chicago and spent most of my latter teen years in New York.  Around eighteen years old, club playing in New York became one of the first steps in my musical career.  Somewhere among all the music playing, I did stand-up comedy for about two years in my twenties and realized that I’m just not all that funny, and decided to stick to the notes.  As if traveling from my birthplace in Brazil, to Chicago and then to New York wasn’t enough, I traveled all over the U.S., Europe, and Canada to tour with bands.  All in all, I have been a member of some seventy bands, mostly secular, but several Christian too.  I have been influenced by a variety of music including Motown, some southern rock such as the Doobie Brothers and Allman Brothers, heavy rock such as Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, Led Zepplin, Journey, and Yes.

            Although born and raised Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist, I had never had a real relationship with God until I moved to California in 1979 and became a Christian.  That’s when I started playing with Christian bands and working closely with popular Christian artists like Phil Keaggy, Mario Murillo Crusade, Bryan Duncan (Sweet Comfort Band), and later, the 77’s from Warehouse Ministries.  One of the biggest bands I was in, called Heartsong, was a personal one I put together with a good friend at the time named Val Lemon.  In 1987, I was in a band called Destiny with Dennis Austin.  While

 

still active in other bands, in 1989, I became a bass player for Sun Grove Community Church in its earlier stages and have continued to do so ever since.  In 2003, I realized there were many new churches who greatly needed help establishing bands and I came up with the idea to bring together a group of very devoted and committed musicians to go out into the community and help these new churches.  This band became known as Frontline and has recently been changed to Paid In Full.  We are excited and happy to be involved in such a purpose, bringing others to worship and praise our lord and savior.