I didn’t return to music to chase an industry. I came back to it to understand myself — and to leave something behind.

I first picked up a guitar in 1990 after graduating from Clemson and taking a job in a remote location where there wasn’t much to do besides exercise and play. That isolation turned into discipline. When I moved back home to Charlotte, I started playing acoustic gigs around town with friends — bars, restaurants, private parties. It was simple, honest, and fun.

Then life accelerated.

I went to optometry school in Memphis, graduated in 2002, and eventually built and ran a private practice in Charleston for nearly two decades. Music took a back seat to responsibility. I raised my son Henry, built a business, and tried to do things the right way.

In 2021, I sold my practice and stepped into a corporate role. It was far more stressful than ownership — because control was gone. During that time I dealt with health challenges and a growing realization that something in me needed to wake back up.

That moment came when my wife surprised me with a gift: “Pick the guitar you’ve always wanted.” We went to Ye Olde Guitar Shop in North Charleston, and I chose a 2002 Gibson Les Paul in tobacco sunburst. That guitar didn’t just sit on a stand — it restarted me.

I had always woken up at 3:00 a.m. to manage business finances. After selling the practice, I kept waking up — but instead of spreadsheets, I started playing. Every morning. Quietly. Consistently. Getting my hands back in shape. Taking modules. Relearning tone and feel.

In 2022, I attended a 120-person family reunion in Rhode Island. My family is Italian, immigrants from the Northeast — New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island. Standing on that old farmhouse property, hearing stories of generations before me, something shifted. I wrote my first original song, “Bound.”

That was the beginning.

I downloaded Ableton and taught myself production. With a mechanical engineering background, the technical side of sound design made sense to me — signal flow, frequencies, compression, spatial dynamics. I experimented relentlessly. Early on, I recorded everything myself — even drums (badly). Eventually I transitioned to bass and programmed drums while I learned the craft.

Songwriting became therapy — not in a cliché way, but as a process of emotional excavation. I start almost every song with a guitar progression. The progression creates a feeling. The feeling demands honesty. The lyrics come last — and they are usually more revealing than I intended when I started.

My first album, Dream State, reflects that period of experimentation and post-pandemic processing. The follow-up work, including Undeniable Truth and more recent singles like “The Crow” and “Close to the Sun,” is more refined — sonically and emotionally.

I now collaborate with UK engineer Danny McLaughlin at The Online Studio, incorporating live drums and more detailed production. I record vocals in a custom-built closet booth at home. Acoustic guitars are mic’d. Electrics sometimes run through a Marshall, sometimes direct. I’m obsessive about getting better each release.

But the deeper reason I do this is legacy.

My grandfather was a tenor at the Metropolitan Opera in his early twenties. My father and his siblings talked about how incredible his voice was — but none of us grandchildren ever heard him. There were no recordings.

That stays with me.

I want my son to hear my voice one day. I want my wife to have something tangible when I’m gone. I want the music to outlive the noise.

The industry today is saturated. Algorithms dominate discovery. Playlisting has become its own economy. But I’m not trying to win that game. I’m trying to become better than yesterday and create something honest.

Diopter is not a reinvention story.

It’s a continuation — of discipline, of growth, of family, of truth.

And I’m just getting started.