Russ was majorly influenced by the music his father, Russ Sr. would play - lots of big band stuff, jazz ,Dixieland, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - even Spike Jones! "There was a huge musical diversity going on in my house at that time,", Russ laughs, "I was seriously grooving on my parents music - then the Beatles hit. When I was 5 years old I remember buying the first American release "Meet The Beatles" - I wore that record out!"

Russ moved from his native California at the age of 6 to Pennsylvania and it was 2 years later he was introduced to the guitar by his stepfather. "He used to sit around the house playing mostly country stuff - mostly just chording and singing along. I would get him to show me what he was doing. He had an electric guitar, a German-made Framus and a Gibson tube amplifier. He would let me play and I was in heaven! My step-brother would come over to the house and bring his guitar and amp - he was playing professionally then and we would have these jam sessions. He was just incredible - completely without any training or any real understanding of what he was doing, he would play perfect renditions of Chet Atkins tunes, Jerry Reed, Roy Clark. I think being exposed to this kind of stuff at a young age really made an impression on me and made me practice like crazy."

Starting at age 10, Russ took 2 years of Piano lessons, learning how to read standard musical notation. "I'm definitely glad I took piano lessons because I still visualize a piano keyboard when I think of theory.", says Russ. "I will often refer to the keyboard when teaching guitar because it is so much more visual." Russ quit taking piano lessons after 2 years because he could no longer tolerate his teacher. "About a year and a half after beginning lessons, in order to keep me interested, my teacher gave me a book of 'boogie-woogie' tunes, you know, with walking bass lines. I thought, 'Finally! Something half-way cool!', so I practiced the hell out of some of these tunes and was ready for my first recital. When I got comfortable with the tune I had picked out, without really knowing what I was doing, I naturally began to 'swing' the tune, though it was written in straight 8th notes. This did not sit well with my teacher, who insisted that I play it 'as written'. That was when I decided it was time for me to move on."

Russ continued to play piano on his own, going through tons of 'fake' books like "Hits of the '60's", "Hits of the '70's" - anything that was inside the piano bench. Most often, he would eschew the written arrangement and using the music theory he was learning in high school, he would combine the melody and construct the chords himself. "I would come home from school and just start learning some Burt Bacharach tune or something just for the hell of it.", Russ comments, "It didn't matter what it was. I was a sponge!"

Around the age of 15, Russ started playing guitar with his friend John Ferrara, who was a year older and had been taking guitar lessons for quite some time. "John taught me a whole lot of stuff,", says Russ, "like my first 'blues' scale, my first minor scale. He showed me more moveable chord forms - 'barre chords' that were real usable in a rock & roll context. We would jam for hours and hours at his house. I remember in those days we started getting more equipment. John bought this huge Ampeg V-4 amp head and built his own 10 x 10 speaker cabinet and loaded it with 10 Radio Shack speakers. We had the cops called on us more than once!"

Russ moved from Pennsylvania to Oregon in 1980 where his father was living. He quickly made friends there and soon ended up in his first 'real' band. "I started playing with some guys that had had a band in high school, ", remembers Russ, "but their lead guitarist had left the area and they were kind of floundering. We just started learning some of the 'heavier' radio-rock songs of the day, mixing pop-metal with top-40 rock and before you know it, we quit our day jobs and went on the road."

'The Road' lasted about 10 years, during which Russ switched bands 3 times. "I was in 3 bands during that time period," comments Russ, "The Rage", "Trespasser" and "Top Secret", all for about equal time periods. It was a real fun time. We traveled a lot! I'll admit here for the record that, yes, we did wear a lot of funny clothes like spandex and glitter tails coats! We had lots of fun."

To get off the road and get some sort of normalcy going in his life, Russ moved to Seattle in 1991. "I figured in a place like Seattle, I could have my cake and eat it too, meaning there were enough clubs happening to where I could gig constantly and not have to travel so much.", says Russ, "Soon after arriving in Seattle, I joined a top-40 band from Tacoma called "Tacoma Vice". Rather coincidentally, I had met the drummer, Everett Jones, when he was in another band a few years before that when we were both playing in Billings, Montana. We had pretty much clicked right away as we both expressed a love of serious funk music."

And serious funk music was exactly what "Tacoma Vice" was capable of, when not bound by the constraints of top-40. Russ had loved funk for years but never had the chance to play it in a band situation.This was a dream come true. "To see what they were all about, I went to check them out in a popular club in Tacoma. I walked in and couldn't believe what I was hearing! I mean, granted, this was a top-40 band but I could tell right away that this was a group of very talented individuals who were laying down some funk like I wasn't used to hearing in a club. I knew I had to be in this band!"

Russ stayed with the band until it's dissolution in 1994, taking a job at a local music store and teaching. "The breakup of 'Tacoma Vice' was kind of a drag but I guess it was time. After looking around for a new band to 'jump into' that would be anywhere near the caliber of 'TV', I felt rather disillusioned - kind of a fish out of water."

Within less than a year, Russ was playing with a great local talent - singer/songwriter Steve Stefanowicz, along with Everett James, the drummer from 'Tacoma Vice'. Russ's experience with Steve taught him to be more 'loose and free' on the bandstand. "Steve would just out of the blue take a tune anywhere, and you had to be ready for it.", remembers Russ, "all of us got to where we could just turn on a dime, almost developing that 'sixth sense' thing that you hear musicians talk about. What a great experience."

After gigging in Alaska in '95-'96, Russ returned to the Seattle area, occasionally performing with local musicians. Then, in 2001, Russ got a call from Everett, who was putting together a band with some very talented local musicians - Joe Blenis, an award-winning, monster guitarist; Scott Simmons, a seriously funky and amazing bassist, and Ray Lewis, one of the area's premier vocalists. "I got the call and just jumped at the chance.", remembers Russ, "These were some heavy hitters here and the plan from the start was to play lots of original tunes, mixed with a few choice covers. I didn't give it more than a few seconds of thought before I said, 'Yes!'." This is the band that would become 'Bump Kitchen'

At first, both Russ and Joe Blenis, the other guitarist in the band, really hadn't thought they had wanted to be in a 2 guitar band. "It's really kinda funny,", says Russ, "I think we were both really hesitant about being involved in a 2 guitar situation. We were both used to having our own space as far as guitar duties. But very quickly we kind of found our 'places', i.e., found what was natural for each of us to do. We both have our strengths and we naturally seemed to gravitate to them without stepping on each other or making the arrangements become too 'busy'. We both listen to each other, which I think sometimes is not done too well in many other bands. Really, the whole band listens to one another amazingly well."

The departure of Ray Lewis in 2002 brought a new vocalist to the band -Tony Harper. The band now began rehearsing like crazy, played many gigs, wrote many tunes and quickly matured into the Bump Kitchen of today.

Bump Kitchen's long awaited debut CD was released in 2002 and is selling briskly.