Sergio's fascination and passion for music manifested early on. He started learning to play the recorder and the melodica as a child in elementary school, which immediately piqued his interest. From there, he would spend the most time he could playing his grandmother's piano every time he visited her. Later on, as a teenager, he'd discover the electric guitar, with which he'd immediately and unconditionally fall in love. Growing on a steady diet of 80's Hard Rock and Metal, he devoted himself full-time (or as much as possible) to mastering the instrument, following the steps of the giants he was exposed to, such as Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, George Lynch, Richie Kotzen, Reb Beach, Blues Saraceno, Greg Howe, Yngwie Malmsteen, and others.
At the same time, he was also discovering the sounds of other styles of music, mainly Jazz Fusion, through the music of artists such as Frank Gambale, Scott Henderson, and Tribal Tech. This pushed him in an interesting direction in his musical development. Through some of these artists, he discovered rhythms influenced by Funk, which circled him back to the music he had grown up with.
His infancy was filled with his parent's music (obviously), which included artists like Barry White, Barry Manilow, Tom Jones, The Jackson 5, ABBA, Boney M, and other similar artists. This left an ever-lasting imprint that would eventually lead him back to be heavily influenced by Funk and Soul music, which connected him to artists such as Charlie Hunter, Oz Noy, John Scofield, Mark Lettieri, Joss Stone, Tower Of Power, and other popular artists in these genres.
His love of funk also started to pull from pop artists, such as Prince, Janet and Michael Jackson, and other similar acts that would be heavily influenced by these styles of music.
He's also always been heavily influenced by electronic music (fun fact... Sergio intended to be a keyboards player before getting to know the electric guitar!). His first clear influece in this genre was Depeche Mode as a teenager, later on diving deeper into the genre through artists such as Massive Attack, Björk, Aphex Twin, Amon Tobin, The Crystal Method, Nine Inch Nails, and other artists. This led him to start incorporating electronic music elements into his own music.
More recently, another early influence of the music he listened as a very young child has started to flourish in his music works. Orchestral music. Through his father, he was exposed very early to the music of well-known works, such as Beethoven, Stravinsky, Ravel, Mozart, and other composers. After becoming extremely interested in orchestral music again through film scores, he started to listen to other composers, such as Rachmaninoff, Philip Glass, John Williams, James Horner, Hans Zimmer, Bruckner, Holst, Penderecki, Danny Elfman, and many many more. He draws from the works of these great composers in his own orchestral compositions.
Currently, Sergio focuses on three different career paths through different projects. He continues to release guitar-oriented rock music as a solo artist, he creates electronic music through his The Eye And The Hand project, and is scoring music for visual and interactive media. Along the way he's also picked up even more instruments to play, which include Bass Guitar, Drums, Keyboards, Harmonica, and different types of Percussion instruments. If it makes a sound and it can be recorded, he gets his hands on it.
As it is evident, Sergio's musical interests draw from a wide array of musical styles. Even though it may seem like a lot of ground to cover it all boils down to one thing... music is a means of expressing something. A thought. A feeling. An idea. A desire. And that's all that having a career in music is all about, no matter the genre. And that's what Sergio's work is all about. Telling the story of what he has experienced. We hope you'll share his journey and find something in it that will make it your own.
