Now it's time to dive into the band members other lives outside the band.
Steve Minzel was born and raised in Seattle. He started playing professionally at age 15. Steve will tell you his self that he made more money then than he does now by far. The music economy has been on a downward sliding scale since the 60's.
When I "Leslie Shelton" was first introduced to Steve I knew at the time we would be eventually performing together in some capacity. Shortly after the failure of my band the first "Rise". I took a break from music for full one year. I was emotionally discouraged from playing music due to a personal disagreement with my drummer at the time on how things should go. Pretty typical, artistic indifferences controlled our destiny.
I was brought back into music by a guy I met at the Lynwood Black Angus on jam night. His name is Ron Bates. Ron had a very up positive attitude and wanted me to sit in with him during the jam.
Ron, I remembered, had a cowboy hat on and seem to be a different style of musician than what I was use to. But because of his optimistic outlook I was encouraged to start a band with him. It was call Rise II. And together we built a very successful band with a mailing list of about 2000 people. The band lasted for about 5 years through various members. And eventually ended on a more positive note. Steve and I started a duel and continued our music relationship for the next 9 years. There's a lot more to tell between than and now but that's all I'm going to tell for now. Keep tuned in and I will share more later.