I got my first professional electric piano, a Fender Rhodes, when I was 14 years old. I also bought a little P.A. with the help of my stepfather paying half. Now that I had a real keyboard and a sound system the natural and logical thing to do was to put together a Top 40 party band. So, I asked my friend Mary, who I knew could sing, and of course who I had a mad crush on since kindergarten. She was super popular in school, was good in sports, and was a super achiever, over all. She’d known me since I was six and said she would jam with me. She knew I was the best musician in school.
We started learning Fleetwood Mac songs and Heart songs and Pat Benatar songs. We’d rehearse together after school in the music room, or at my house or at hers. We both had pianos and we spent a lot of time building our repertoire. She and I worked well together and we were both fast learners and naturally talented.
The next step was finding a guitar player. I knew of several older kids in school who could play, so I went to each one to find out if they wanted to join my band. After a while, I found the right guy. He was super good at playing lead guitar and also wrote his own originals and could sing background harmonies.

There weren’t any bass players at my school so I asked Andy, my friend from band class, if he would let me teach him the bass. I knew he was a trombone player and musical enough to figure out the bass. I didn’t know how to play the bass, but Andy was an intelligent kid and I could teach him the songs from the piano and basically work it out on the spot.
The last instrument was drums and there were a few guys in school that could play, but the best guy, by far, was Charlie Clouser. He was totally into Led Zeppelin and he could play with that same kind of amazing rock feel. I systematically went out and found the best musicians in school to play with and said “you’re in my band now.” That’s pretty much how it started.

We were rehearsing in my parent’s living room after school a couple times a week and we got good really fast. I have to hand it to my parents; they were very supportive and I guess we were good enough that they liked the music. Or, maybe they just figured it was a good way to keep an eye on me and keep me off the streets. Over a short time, our living room started filling up with equipment and speakers and drums and amps and lights and banners and all kinds of music stuff.
We had a decent band, and when it looked like we were actually going to go somewhere we needed a name. We spent a couple days trying to think of stuff and got nowhere. Then Mary, the lead singer, who I was  madly in love with, said she was reading a book called Watership Down and that there was a word in Rabbit Language called Zorn, that meant destruction.
We thought it was pretty cool. But Charlie, our drummer, insisted that the name had to have an X in it. He didn’t carewhat the name was as long as it had an X in it. He was obsessed with the letter X. If our name didn’t have an X in it, he might have held his breath until he passed out and turned blue. We figured that we’d spell the word XORNE and say it meant destruction in rabbit language. We thought it was a cool sounding name even though it really doesn’t matter what anyone calls a band, as long as there’s a reason behind it. It doesn’t really matter what anyone calls anything, as long as there’s a good REASON for it.

When people found out about our band the first thing they said was, “what does the name mean?” We had a great explanation and nine times out of 10 people would think it was a pretty clever name.
XORNE got to play some of our high school dances and other schools’ dances, too. We knew enough songs to play four 45-minute sets, and then we had some extra jam songs in case we had to keep going. Since Mary was the lead singer we predominantly played female singer songs, like Pat Benatar, Heart, Linda Ronstadt. But some other bands with high vocals like Led Zeppelin also sounded pretty good with a girl singer.
Jon, our guitarist, could sing well enough to do a couple guy songs, plus a couple originals. We were mostly a Top 40, pop/rock cover band, because where I came from that’s what everyone wanted to hear.
We actually made $500 a night sometimes! It was really cool to be the center of attention, plus sound good and get paid money, and decent money at that. I guess that’s why so many people want to be musicians; it’s really a great gig if you can pull it off. It’s actually still the coolest job in the world.
During Winter Carnival at our high school, our band wanted to be in talent show, but the judges said that since we got paid we were “professionals” and it wouldn’t be fair because we were too good. I guess that was sort of a compliment. They said we could play for fun and so we did and everyone there knew that we would’ve won the contest because we were easily the best.

I sang a song from Rocky Horror Picture Show, with just me and my keyboard. It was a pretty risque song about being a transsexual from Transylvania. Rocky Horror was a big hit during those days and I have to admit that it took a lot of balls to do that, all by myself, right in front of the WHOLE SCHOOL!!! I came in second, which was pretty good because I was only a freshman and all the judges were seniors and they couldn’t let a freshman win a talent contest; it just wouldn’t look right.
That was a great moment I’ll never forget; that feeling of doing something totally scary, but doing it anyway, and conquering my fear. Plus, the whole school applauded me and said I was great. That moment cemented in my mind that I wanted to be in show business for life.
I won other talent contests with Mary. One time, we entered a town-wide show and Suzy Chaffee, the pro skier, was one of the judges. Her name was Suzy Chapstick back then because she was famous and used to do those dumb Chapstick commercials on TV.
We did the Fleetwood Mac song “Dreams” and killed it. We knew we were the best in the whole show because it was just plain obvious to me, Mary and everyone else there. We had a great vibe, looked great together and we played great too.
Mary was such a tremendous singer and pretty, too. She was 5’10″ with a smokin’ body, and long dirty blonde hair, and I was 6’4″ and skinny and looked above average, if I don’t mind saying so. We would’ve been a great couple. We had so much in common. She was tall. I was tall. We both played music. Her dad was a history professor at Dartmouth College and so was mine. We both liked to smoke pot and play music and do sports and we were both popular and the youngest kid in a big family. Mary never really wanted to go out with me, but we were great friends and great musical partners.
She was in my class in kindergarten and I had a crush on her way back then. I used to sing to her, Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes…

Even though Mary and I never really hooked up on the romantic level, we hooked up plenty with music. We had that passion in common and it was probably even more powerful than the man/woman thing, sort of. Plus, we were only kids and not really old enough to be in a relationship. I guess I’ll always love her anyway even though she doesn’t love me. She was my first love, all the way from kindergarten through senior year in high school. I’ll probably be scarred for life over Mary. We sure made great music together, though.