I was born on March 3, 1980. At the time my parents were living in Rosarito, Mexico but storms had made it impossible for my dad to drive my mom into town so they were re-routed to a cancer clinic in Playas de Tijuana. After a long and painful labor I was born, maybe the only baby ever born in that clinic. My parents are both Americans, born and raised in the U.S. and I was raised in those traditions all though I grew up in Mexico. Mom and Dad split when I was 5 and I stayed to live in Rosarito with dad.

Dad, Robert Pace Kidd, is a Western style artist and a surfer... a complete original. His personality and life-style have a great deal to do with who I am. Dad and I spent most of our time going to the beach. Sometimes he would have an art show somewhere in the U.S. and I’d go with him on these long drives across country.

When I was 15 I moved from Rosarito to live with mom in Riverside, CA where I would finish highschool and attend some college. Corky (bassist for Joe Kidd and The Gash) is my half brother, same mother, different father and I really didn’t see him much until I moved in with mom. Since I didn’t have a very active social life in highschool we spent a lot of time together, so we got to know each other pretty well during those years in Riverside.

My music "career" got a start in elementary school. My first instrument was the trumpet. After that I picked up trombone, drums, guitar, harmonica, piano, bass and saxophone. Music has always been an interest of mine. T.V. viewing was discouraged by my dad but I had some toy instruments that I liked to play on and dad was always playing a record or the radio, or fooling around on his harmonica. At one point I had on old reel to reel tape recorder that I fooled around with. Childhood in Rosarito was a bit lonely so I was left to entertain myself most of the time and listening to music, or playing an instrument was a great way to make the hours pass. By the time I had moved to the United States music was my greatest interest.

After highschool I was in and out of a few different bands. Each played a different style of music. I mostly played guitar and sang but I got some good experience performing and writing in different genres of music. That was always ok with me because I have a very non-bias taste in music. I’ll listen to anything you put in font of me.

It was a sort of fear and desperation of getting caught in a day job that pushed me into writing the music that would form Joe Kidd and The Gash. Because of my position in life I forced myself into expression and I put everything I could into it. College didn’t quite work out for me. I found myself getting caught up in work and bills without much time for study. Of course, I was always playing music which didn’t help. I’ve worked all sorts of crazy jobs, lately I’m a crane operator...but I realized, as many musicians do, that playing and writing music is the only thing that’s going to keep me happy.