I started playing guitar when I was 12 years old. My dad bought me a $5 no-name acoustic guitar from a garage sale and told me to start playing. I had just discovered Metallica at the time,
and this fueled my urge to learn how to play the songs that I was constantly head banging to. I formed my first band Iridium in Middle School with my 4 best friends. The first show we ever played was
for our 8th grade graduation. There were close to 1,000 people there: 300 in the graduating class including mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandmas, and grandpas... Still
one of the biggest shows I've ever played. When Iridium broke up, I was left without a band for a few months until my friend asked me to play for his death metal band Abomination. This is
the first time I had a chance to play music with Oscar Ramirez. We were good friends in high school but had never played in a band together before then. I stayed in Abomination for about 2 years
and then left the band to form the death/thrash band Disintegrator. We released 2 EP's, one of which you can download for free at (http://www.mediafire.com/?mmdfmmz3myj). We played many local
shows and a few big fests with bands such as Exodus, 3 Inches of Blood, Agent Steel, and Helstar. After 4 years with Disintegrator the members mutually decided to put the band on hiatus. It was
after Disintegrator that I got the offer to join the mighty Pathology.

My style of guitar playing comes from all different styles of rock and metal. I am completely self-taught and learned everything I know from watching guitarists play or listening to music. As long
as I have been playing guitar, I have been working to improve my soloing. I gained influence from many virtuoso's such as Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Paul Gilbert, Guthrie Govan, Greg Howe, Eric
Johnson, and John Petrucci. I quickly began utilizing a variety of techniques such as sweep picking, legato, finger tapping, and string skipping. When I pick up a guitar I will usually warm
up with some finger strengthening exercises for 5 to 10 minutes, then begin improvising leads using the different scales I have picked up. I found this is a great way to improve one's playing
ability. Improvising forces your mind to think on the spot and helps you connect specific licks and scale patterns to each other. This ultimately increases your musical knowledge and ability from the
realization of these connections that you were not aware of before. If I can give one piece of advice to a guitarist, it would be to practice your licks at a speed that you can play them CLEANLY.
When I was first learning Necrophagist's "Foul Body Autopsy" in high school, there was no way I could play that song up to speed without it sounding like complete shit. I practiced each riff
slowly and began piecing the song together. It took more than a month before I was able to play along with the CD and nail very single note. If you want to play clean and fast you have to play slow
first, and eventually work your way up to the speed that you desire.

(source: http://pathologymusic.com/fr_band.cfm)