John started out at the age of 8, learning and playing the organ by ear. After finally taking theory classes as a teen for about a year, he began composing his own material. He began observing and emulating techniques on the piano while in college and slowly began building a large repertoire of material, mostly consisting of music from the 70’s, predominantly the works of Elton John and Billy Joel. Refusing to submit to formal piano instruction, he learned most of the material by ear, or by following the guitar chords on sheet music.

In 1989, John signed up with Phil Calkins of Leo Records and performed every Thursday through Saturday at Muldoons Saloon, near Division and State, as well as stints at other locations for about a year and a half. Eventually, after a small musical hiatus in 1991, up until 1992, the solo spotlight called out to him and he began a career of piano bars, coffeehouses and park concerts throughout the Midwest. He continued down this path for 4 years, gigging, composing and recording a solo CD, demanding a significant amount of self-promotion and management.

While actively working through this regiment part-time, John’s full-time job in the telecommunications industry lead him to a few of his current and former band-mates. One late-autumn Friday night, several members of the band ED came out to listen at one of his performances at a local coffee house. After a tiny bit of persuasion by the group and a couple of jam sessions later, John became a full-fledged member of ED, adding vocals and keyboard to their already “ed”gy sound. He continued to perform solo on a part-time basis, while mixing in gigs with the band. Finally, in 1998, after two full years of doing both, John hung up his solo act and decided to concentrate the music side of his life solely on ED, with the hope that his contributions will continuously help the band to grow.

And grow they did. But after 12 years together, some of the ED members decided to go down their own or new paths. As a result, the gigging tapered off and things were starting to die down. However, as Tony Altimari began jamming with another set of musicians, he invited John and his vocal counterpart from ED, Susan Swanson to meet and try some material together. The union was easy, fun and borderline magical. After spending time building a set list and mulling over band names (which took about 5 months to do so) the end result is Vital Signs, and John couldn’t be happier with the mix of talent, sound and repertoire. And with more to come…… 