Tell me about Preston as a teenager. I was typical, I guess. Like I said I grew up doing all the teenage stuff. My teenage life, because of private school, my schoolwork was a heavy load and I played sports and I played my drums, so my days were full, and my weekends were full. We were a tight family and still are. My family is very close we had that close family life which means on the weekends we were all together. Up until the time my sisters graduated high school and went off to college, they were already gone off to college and out of the house by the time I was a teenager. In a way I was almost an only child be- cause they were gone out of the house by the time I was 11 years old. Once I hit teenage years I was on my own as far as that goes. Our Saturdays were chores. You know, we did the family stuff. Once I did the family stuff on Saturdays, I could go hog wild on a fun time for me. Sundays were church. We went to church every Sunday morn- ing and every Sunday night and Wednesday’s nights. I went to church a lot, I was in the youth group and all of that. I’m very glad I had that. The relationships and the way I was brought up I’m very thankful for to this day. Got my first car, my grandfather had an
old ‘63 Galaxy he sold to me for a dollar because it was sitting in his yard and hadn’t been run in a few years. He sold it to me when I was around 14. One Saturday he said you want that old car? And I said yeah, and he asked me how much money I had on me. I had a dollar and I gave it to him, and he said it was mine. He my dad and I got it run- ning and got it to my house. I had a cousin who was a hot rodder and he painted it for me so by the time I was 16 it was ready to go. It was cool, I wish I still had it. I sold it when I was an adult. It was a big mistake, but we all make mistakes. I got into a little bit of trouble as we all did.
Did my share of partying and experimenting but nothing too bad nothing more than any of the rest of us did. Never got in trouble with the law back then, I was too scared to get in trouble at home. That’s my teenage years
What was your first job outside of music? I didn’t really have a job in music until I was out of high school and into my 20s, so my first job was working at Six Flags. Working at the Run-
away Mine Train for the first summer after I turned 16. I worked in the area where they have all the games and ski ball over by the Scream Ma- chine. I worked over in that area and made change and gave the prizes out, not much but it was cool.
What was your first experience of playing in a band? Of course, like all musicians, once you start learn- ing how to play and you’re a teenager you want a band. And I wanted a band. I jammed with a couple guitar players and that was my first expe- rience at just playing music with other people my age and just playing our instruments. I’m sure it was nothing special but it sure seemed like it was at the time. When I was in 11th grade one of my buddies at church was a really great guitar player and he had been in a band with another really hotshot guitar player in the area, as far as teenagers go, a hotshot. And so, he and I started a band with another friend of his that played bass, so we had a trio. We were into Rush and all the progressive rock and all the really heavier rock n roll that was going at the time. That was what our influences were. And because we were friends from the church, we were a Christian band. Now we didn’t have a singer, he couldn’t sing and play guitar, the bass player couldn’t sing and play the guitar and I certainly couldn’t do it and play drums at the same time. So basically, we were kind of an instrumental band. We called it Vision. That was my first experience playing music with other musicians and it really worked and I thought wow this is cool. It was a good experi- ence and it taught me how to listen to other play- ers while playing
What was your first experience of touring with a band? When was it, how did you travel and who did you do shows with? In 1984 I saw my first Grateful Dead show in Charlotte NC. That changed a lot of my musical direction, in fact it completely changed my musi- cal direction. I turned down that alleyway as far as the type of music that I wanted to play and be two drummers. I had already been a big Allman Brothers, Doobie Brothers, and Charlie Daniels fan they all had two drummers. And so, when I was exposed to the Grateful Dead that was the
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