Bio

2008-04-15T22:09:00.000-07:00

In the beginning....

I am the first born of Patrick and Patricia Sica. Since they were very young when they had me (20 and 19 respectively), I have a tremendous amount of respect for the job they did raising both myself and my sister, Kristina. I always felt that we had a rare opportunity to grow up along with our parents and have always been extremely close to them because of it. I am the spitting image of my father and we share pretty much everything in common, including our love for live music.

I didn't go to my first concert until I was 19. I saw Our Lady Peace for 92 cents at Irving Plaza and fell in love with the Live music experience. Soon after that, my cousin gave me his old electric guitar and I began hacking away on the Star Spangled Banner. I never took any lessons because I never wanted the guitar to become a chore of any kind. Ok, so I was just incredibly lazy. After a few years of playing radio songs, I saw a band called Finger Eleven and they changed my entire perspective on both making and playing music. The guitarists' musical and visual styles were unlike anything I'd seen before. Their sound was a blend of punchy guitar rhythms, loads of guitar effects (which gave them a dark, almost mechanical feel) and just about the most charismatic drummer you'll ever see. They were a real shot in the arm for me and I realized that I wanted to create music with atmosphere, something that people could lose themselves in. I bought my Fender Telecaster and my first of many, many effect pedals and began on the ever so painful path of songwriting, band-forming/splitting up/reforming, and recording.

After my band, Orsus, finished tracking our album in the studio using pro tools, I became overwhelmed with the songwriting possiblities in having my own pro tools studio. Instead of writing basslines, drum beats, and vocal lines for everyone else to learn, I'd be able to write songs by having us all jam out on a riff, and piece together all the best parts from every band member and eventually form a song that would showcase all of our talents, instead of just 5 guys playing what 1 guy wrote. So I took out loans, and basically spent a lot of money I didn't even have to turn my 1 bedroom apartment into exactly what I wanted in order to write, and hopefully record our music. It took 3 months to design the studio and almost 7 months to complete. I'll post pictures of it as soon as I can...

Top Five Sound Barriers

2008-04-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

The music that filled my apartment growing up was my father's choice, and it helped shape me into the person that I am today--but most of it didn't directly influence me. He listened to everything rock, and although he introduced me to bands that I now love (Led Zepplin, The Beatles, and Pink Floyd to name a few) alot of what he played shared a basic theme: ripping guitar breaks. Most of the guitar solos of that era were found in late 70's blues-rock and straight 80's cock rock, so when it comes to Quiet Riot, Mountain, Damn Yankees, The Scorpions, Alice Cooper, Van Halen, Foghat, Living Colour, Bon Jovi and Ozzy Osbourne, me and my sister know all their "deep cuts". I didn't begin to form my own opinion of music until I was a freshman in college and started playing guitar myself, never caring about being able to play a crazy face-melting solo, but more about creating a darker mood using effects and interesting rhythms.

So...

My top five sound barriers is going to be a list of bands instead of songs. I've always been more impressed with the overall vibe of these bands, their entire setlist, rather than just one of their songs...

1) Tool

2) Pink Floyd

3) Finger Eleven

4) Rage Against the Machine

5) Our Lady Peace