Bill P
Guitars and Backing Vocals

At about age 10 I became interested in guitar playing after a "Guitar Lesson" flyer made its way into the mailbox. My
father had a 1955 Gibson Acoustic guitar under the spare bed that I knew I could hack away at so we didn't have to buy one. The guitar was about as big as I was and I could barely hold it. Lessons were straight from Mel Bay Book 1 and very uninspiring. It was enough to get the basics down.  (In retrospect, I don't know why or how the hell I stuck with it.)

Around age 13, I started formal guitar training with the great blues legend, Bernie, from the BB and the Stingers. Mostly learning pentatonic scales and songs from the masters such as Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eddie Van Halen.  This cat was the shit. A mean-ass string-bending shredder.  He taught me how to read and write music and figure out how to cop any guitar lick.

With that under my belt, I formed my first band at age 14 with a bunch of friends.  We learned a couple of Iron Maiden tunes and played to our friends and neighbors.  I think "Flight of Icarus" was the first song we learned. Word spread, I eventually hooked up with some new players and jumped from one garage band
to another.  It was real loud and real fun.

I went on to study classical guitar and music theory with guitarist Mike Walsh (Mark Thompson Smith, Departure, Ritchie Blackmore).  At this time I really was bi-polar.  I loved Andres Segovia and the heavier stuff like Slayer, Metallica and Celtic Frost.   I just wanted to play everything.

With time, everything just self destructed.  The scene, the band and my drive to play.  I packed away my gear for many years and only played when there was nothing else to do.

I found my way up to Northern Jersey and moved into an apartment with Chris (our drummer) in Madison. The scene was decent in Morris County.  There were plenty of places to play and a decent circle of musicians. Chris was searching for a band and I still wasn't really interested in joining a band.

At the same time, I was dating Kelly, who would eventually become my wife. She encouraged me and inspired me to play again. I ended up hooking up with Jeff Becker Studios in Morris Plains, NJ to get my chops back in shape.  Jeff's up-front personality combined with his innovative guitar method was something special. Each lesson was an experience that became an addiction. Jeff has since passed on and will certainly be missed.

I met a few musicians at Jeff's studio and started gigging again.  I was in the band “Ground Zero” and Chris had nestled in with “Busterman”.  During all of this, I met Mike (bassist and singer) through my wife. He was playing in a band called "Bad Moon" with Eddie (guitar).  We eventually all hooked up to form SUPERNOVA.   Two years, over 100 shows and still going strong….