Sal Casabianca
Guitars: Martin D28 and HD28 and a Froggy Bottom all with Pure Mini pickups
I think that every step on the road gets you to where you now are, so there really are no missteps. My first step was when I started making music twenty-five years ago. It started in Queens, New York.
And in the ensuing years, I lived many places, but Queens was always part of me. It's also the place I again call home. What can you say about a kid who came of musical age in the mid 1970s? The first time I heard Kiss, I knew I had to play rock.
The first time I went to a Frank Zappa concert, I knew what rock music could do, and I wanted to do that. I had my share of what you could call "almost fame". In the mid 1980s, I was with a band called Pilot Jones. In 1988, we were signed to CBS records, released an EP called Fall Out of Love and were never heard from again.
In the early 1990s, I joined a band called Venus Beat. It was a blend of Disco, R & B and two Drag Queens singing soul. We became a Wednesday night regular at New York City's Limelight. It was a good time. And now, looking back, it reminds me of my tendency toward Frank Zappa, to do what's different and by getting people to enjoy it to show them that it's not really that different at all.
Venus Beat disbanded in 1993, and I found myself at a crossroad. I enjoyed playing with bands, but I was reaching a point in my music when I wanted to express myself directly. So, I started writing songs and just playing them with my guitar around New York City . I liked it.
By 2001, I felt that I had a group of songs that really expressed what I had gone through up to that point. That was my first CD, Curve. The emotional outlet of those songs saved my life. In 2003, I released Living Between the Bridges. I wanted to open up my musical style.
Living Between the Bridges was more multi-genre, a mix... from jazz to rock to folk to blues. I was conscious to give it a more live feel too. I guess that brings us to this part of the road, i.d.
I feel it's the best work I've done so far, but I'll let you be the final judge. I'm not big on life lessons. I think life is more about discovery. So the one thing that I've discovered is that what you love to do is not judged by how much money you make but how much it gives to you.
Fame, gold records, money doesn't equal satisfaction, and that goes for more than music.
People ask me if I consider myself a musician or a banker? I say: "I'm a full-time musician/songwriter and a part-time banker, because musicians need a job or else how could we afford to buy guitars?"
http://www.myspace.com/salcasabianca1
Click here for a chance to be K&K's next Artist of the Month!
Click here for archives of previous Artists of the Month.