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Harry formed his first band at the age of 13. He "borrowed" a drum kit and formed HELLOVE with two other local musicians who's names are lost to history. That's it, no drum lessons, just formed a band. Of course they weren't very good but they rehearsed for an entire summer as Harry at least learned how to keep time. Lying about their ages, Hellove actually performed one set at the local bar "Cheers Pub" before they broke up.
Harry then sold the drum kit, "bought" an acoustic guitar and took lessons. He formed his second band, FOCUS CONCENTRATE, as a lead guitar player with rhythm guitarist Jimmy Demetriou, drummer Nick Coztas, bassist "Karloff" a/k/a Franklin Stein (his real name) and "Blutto" (real name lost) on keyboards and lead vocals. Focus Concentrate was a New Wave/Punk version of The Who meets Led Zeppelin. for about a year, Focus Concentrate played every major local club, ("Finnigan's Rainbow", "The Fields", "Hammerheads", "Detroit's"...) before meeting up with the six piece Rolling Stones cover band RATS & MICE at Smash Rehearsal studios in Long Island City.
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Harry then very briefly joined his cousin Chris’s Southern Rock band, Harry was a Punk / Metal guitar player... let’s just say that the two styles didn’t mesh well.
Next up was a very short stint as a bass player for the Punk/Ska collage band COMMANDER CONFIDENCE & THE SECURITY GUARDS. They played clubs and collage campuses throughout the Tri-state Area for three months before Harry met up with his old bass player Franklin Stein (still his real name) at a show at Stonybrook University. One week later, Harry was growing tired of the Commander's self importance. It was "his" band and he would often remind you of that fact while on stage, so Harry publicly quit the band on stage at the end of a live show.
Back on guitar and reunited with "Karloff" on bass, Harry Slash, then known as "Mr. H", formed STORM, with John Belis on drums and Larry Christopher on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, STORM was pure adrenaline ‘Power Punk’. Playing every show at any club they could, Storm quickly developed a very strong local following. With a mixture of angry punk rock originals and bizarre rearranged covers, (their Reggae version of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" was always requested) Storm would take command of any club they were in and were very theatrical as well. Smashing candy-glasss fake beer botles on their eqipment and each other's heads and chewing on pieces of "broken glass" while letting fake blood drip down their chins. (yes, they did steal that bit from KISS and others ...)
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Harry spent a very brief period of time playing in a "Synthetic Polyester Dance Cover Band" while looking for other musicians to form another original band. A few months later, Harry broke two fingers on his right hand, three on his left and suffered tendon damage as a result of a bar fight. Needless to say, his days as a live guitar player were now over. *
Skipping many of the details of the next several years for many illicit and incriminating reasons, Harry Slash formed The Slashtones as the lead singer in 1993 and hooked up with ECW in 1996 where he went on to be known as one of the best theme music composers in wrestling history. For the compleate Sashtones part of this story check out the HISTORY section.