Growing up in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, I was a very shy kid and people I'm sure thought that I was stuck up all the time. But once I joined a rock n roll band, I became a different person while on stage and I loved it! My first gig ever was playing " De Colores" a traditional Mexican folk song. I played and sang that song with my proud mom in 1st grade at Gates Street School, a gig that I will always remember. Growing up I listened to a lot of big band music because that was my dads era. So mixing big band, rancheras, corridos, Chicano rock (Santana, Malo, El Chicano), heavy metal ( Maiden, Priest, Krokus, Accept), and the classics such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and of course the killer low rider oldies, inspired me to create my own style of writing music. I compare it to eating nachos, tortillas on the bottom and lots of good stuff on the top. Meeting Carlos Escanuelas from Ontario also changed my life. Another song writer/musician who wrote songs that meant something and came from the heart. Soon we became good friends and even became family when I married his wife's cousin, Donna. Many Ideas and songs have come out of this freindship and continues to this day. Outstanding the name itself seems a little overboard for a band name in my own opinion (read the history of the band to understand the true meaning of the name Outstanding) but it fits very well with the type of musicians that make up this band.