David Senra

Fuck them.

I was going to play lead guitar.

For the next several years, I would spend every available hour cradling my guitar, twisting and torturing the strings until they broke or until I fell back on my bed asleep with it in my arms.

While other kids were hanging out, I would rush home to my room and I'd stay there and play until the early morning.

I had a secret.

There was something that I could do, something I might be good at.

I fell asleep at night with dreams of rock and roll glory in my head.

This is the start of that determined work ethic.

And so he forms another band.

Their first gig is at a trailer park.

And after that, they would take any gig they could get.

He says it was YMCAs, high schools, ice rinks, supermarket openings, drive-in theaters, mental hospitals, beach clubs, and any place you could set up a five-piece band that wanted decent local entertainment at a cheap price.

He is still in high school.

He meets these older guys that are in this legendary local band called the Motifs.

It's these two brothers.

One would teach Bruce about the guitar, and the other one would provide Bruce what being a rock star was like.

The first brother, his name is Ray Shishone, and Ray would share his great guitar knowledge, which with undeserving young wannabes like us, that's how Bruce is describing himself at this point, Ray remains one of my great guitar heroes, a real man with a life who took the time to pass down what he knew to a bunch of not necessarily promising kids.

His brother Walter was another story entirely.

The first true star I'd ever been close to.

A full-blooded rock and roll animal with the attitude, the sexuality, the toughness, the raw sensuality pouring out of him.