Gavin O’Hara - guitar and vocals

Gavin is a San Diego county native (one of the few) who was born at La Mesa, California. I started out playing a friend’s snare drum and singing lead vocals when I was 14 and living in Central Texas. When I returned to San Diego, California in 1976 I started playing acoustic guitar. My early influences were The Beatles, Bad Company, BTO, Deep Purple and ZZ Top.

In 1977, my first electric guitar was given to me as a birthday gift from my grandmother who was also a blues guitarist and singer. My grandmother, Virginia Wyman (”Virginia Lee”, stage name) played in blues bands and vaudeville shows from 1921 to 1947 throughout the mid-West and the San Diego area. My left-handed guitar-playing grandmother taught me to play guitar right-handed using mirrors and reverse chord charts.

Joined my second band “Wizard” just before graduating high school and played lead guitar in the bands “Force”, “Noizy Toyz”, “Doug Stephens & Company”, “Red Alert”, “Sanction”, “Sabotage”, “Visual Thunder”, “Black Diamond”, “Street Legal”, “Sinor”, and an R&B group at a Spreckles Theater concert for 4,000 throughout my early music career. Later, joined the band Wolfgaard which morphed into Monsters of Rock.

Attended Grossmont College and studied music classes—music theory, jazz guitar and piano lessons.