Origin story

Q. Why did I get into guitar?
A. Two things: My father introducing me to rock music, and video games.

Rock n' Roll

When I was growing up, music was all around. I've loved it as far back as I can remember. My mother usually played Spanish love songs whenever she drove my brother and me to school. Every. single. morning. Sometimes she would change it up and play cassette tapes of her favorite English songs. I still know all of the words to Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

My father, on the other hand, kept the radio on 107.7. I was bombarded with bands from the 70's and 80's. Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Queen, and other great bands and rock anthems filled my head. My dad had a cassette tape of AC/DC, one of his favorite bands. "Highway to Hell" and "Back in Black" became staples during long road trips, and my dad would sing along and make up lyrics since he only knew the chorus. Soon enough, I became fond of rocking guitar solos. Squeeling notes and shredded musical scales left me in awe. I imagined myself on stage rocking out and doing what the rock stars do. But I feel that perhaps I became oversaturated at some point during my preteen years, because I started disliking rock music and gravitated toward hip hop music instead.

Video Games

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater defined my childhood. I owned every title in the series, except the first one. That was only because my neighbor had it, and I would just play it at his house. My brother and I played THPS every chance we could get. I wanted to emulate the way the skaters dressed, how they talked, and how they acted. The soundtrack was very influential as well. Throughout the series, each title had a diverse soundtrack that had a mix of rock songs, heavy metal, punk, rap, rap-rock, ska, and other genres. There was the option to customize the playlist during gameplay, and I remember censoring all the songs I wasn't fond of. Usually the hard rock or surreal ska music, leaving me mostly with rap and hip hop. However, there were a few non-hip-hop songs that really piqued my interest: AC/DC's "TNT," The Dead Kennedy's "Police Truck," Rage Against the Machine's "Guerilla Radio," among others. I left these songs on my strictly hip hop playlists as the exceptions. It seems that even though I listened to hip hop primarily, I never really stopped liking rock music, although I refused to admit it to myself.


The real breakthrough happened when Guitar Hero became the next big craze. The titles didn't catch my attention at first, because I still wasn't too interested in rock music. One day while at a friends house, a group of my friends were playing Super Smash Bros until we got bored. Then the host pulls out the guitar controller and suggests we play some GH. I was reluctant, but the other guys were up to the idea. Democracy being the beautiful system it is, soon enough it was my turn to hold the plastic, replica Gibson SG. After a couple of songs and getting the hang of it, I had a change of heart: "Ok, maybe this is sort of cool..." Fast forward to my birthday that year, and there I am unwrapping my own copy of Guitar Hero 2. Before I knew it, I was striving for 100% completion on the Expert difficulty of my favorite songs.

The Real Deal

I caught electric guitar fever. Next, rock songs invaded my mp3 player. After a while, my father noticed my renewed interest in rock, and asked why I didn't pick up a real guitar instead of smashing some buttons on a fake one. He said that if I put enough time into a real guitar as I did with Guitar Hero, I could be like the lead guitarist of AC/DC. I laughed it off as a joke.

Then Christmas came.

Walking into my bedroom, my mom came up behind me and covered my eyes. When she let go, before me  stood my very own electric guitar. My dad made me promise him one thing. "Don't play with it for a couple of days and then forget about it. I don't want to see this thing gathering any dust."

I still haven't broken that promise. As long as I have fingers, I will play them to the bone.