Ryan Roxie - Early Life

Early Life

Roxie was born in Sacramento, California and grew up in the East Bay in a small town called Pleasanton. Ryan's father, Polish, used to play trumpet and his mother was a drummer in her high school marching band. Around age five Roxie picked up the guitar but was more interested in drums. It wasn't until he was around eleven or twelve that he started taking guitar seriously. Roxie often sites Keith Partridge as an early influence.

"When I was a kid, there was a show on TV, called The Partridge Family. One character, Keith Partridge, was played by David Cassidy. When people ask me who's my biggest influence, I always say 'Keith' and people assume I mean Keith Richards....in reality, I always wanted to be Keith Partridge."

All of Roxie's heroes were in magazines like Circus and Kerrang and it seemed like they had the easiest and best jobs. Roxie's first electric guitar came as a Christmas present one year, a cream-colored Stratocaster. After the Strat, Roxie acquired his first Gibson Les Paul, and to this day Roxie still considers the Gold Top his "first girlfriend". He went on to form a band called Star Fire with friends Matt Clarke and Mike Pavlick.

Roxie learned to play guitar from an old record player and invented his own form of scratching, going through many records in the process, picking out guitar parts. He was influenced by albums like Van Halen and has had many guitar heroes including Brian May from Queen, Steve Stevens, Elliot Easton from The Cars, Neil Geraldo from Pat Benatar and Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick.