paul PESCO STAR OF THE FUTURE!

paul PESCO STAR OF THE FUTURE!

Nick Belgiorno

Perhaps you've never heard his name, but the chances are good that you've heard him play music. Paul Pesco has worked with so many big name acts (Steve Winwood, Cyndi Lauper, Atlantic Starr and Madonna to name a few) that it was only-a matter of time before someone recognized this young musician as a major talent in his own right. And with the release of his first album, Make It Reality, Paul is ready to step out from behind the shadows of other stars and enjoy the spotlight himself for awhile.

"I had always wanted to do a solo thing," Paul told ROCK-SHOTS in a recent interview. "However, I didn't want to rush into it. I wanted to do it when the time was right. And I had been learning. I consider every time I go into the studio and work with somebody on a new project, it's like school. To me it's an educational thing, and every situation is a little different. But I knew that eventually I was going to do my own record."

Paul was born in New York to an Italian father and Korean mother, which explains his exotic good looks. His father was an opera singer, and at the age of six Paul seemed to be following in his footsteps as he appeared onstage in a number of operas, his boy soprano voice hinting at the musical talent that was yet to come. But as he grew older, his involvement with opera began to dwindle and he discovered a new form of music—rock 'n' roll. Soon he was learning to play guitar.

"I didn't know that I was going to be a guitar player," Paul-remembers, "but my older sister, one of her girlfriends had left a couple of Jimi Hendrix records over at the house and I ended up inheriting them." Inspired by Hendrix, Paul eventually started forming his own bands, playing raw rock 'n' roll that was a far cry from the urban dance sounds he later became involved in. "It was totally rock," he laughs. "I hated anything else. If you had told me that I was going to be doing pop music and playing on R & B records back then I would've said 'You're crazy.'"

Paul eventually got a job as a rehearsal technician at New York's famous SIR Studios, where he met some of the hottest names in the business as well as a young woman who would change the way pop music was perceived in the 1980's.

"People would hold showcases there, and auditions too," Paul recalls, "and there was this French disco artist that was doing a tour in the early '80s and he was holding an audition. He had run an ad in. the Village Voice for three back-up singers for his tour. That day, I'd say about three to four hundred girls came through the studio to audition. This one girl who was there came back into the office and introduced herself. She was a pretty straightforward, aggressive Italian girl, and I said 'What's your name?' And she said 'Madonna.' It turned out at the end of the day she was one of the three girls who got the gig."

Paul didn't see Madonna again until a year later, when he was working in the studio with a new group. "As I was walking out of the studio I saw that Italian girl again, and she said 'Hi. I think your band stinks. I hate that rock stuff. I think you should play in my band.' Then she sang for me in the room, a cappella, and right away I knew, 'Wow, this girl's gonna go somewhere.'"

Paul eventually ended up playing on much of Madonna's debut album and later toured with the singer on her "Like A Virgin" tour. A string of impressive jobs followed as Paul's talents were constantly in demand. Though his album was released just this year, its origins date back all the way to 1985, when Sire Records first approached Paul about doing a solo record. In the intervening years, he had plenty of time to decide what direction his debut would take.

"It's a combination of various elements," Paul says now about Make It Reality. "I'm really trying to put elements together from my background. It's a pop format, but it's not really dance and it's not really rock 'n' roll—it's somewhere in the middle."

Even though Paul now has a solo career to worry about, he still can't resist getting involved with other projects. He recently completed work on albums by Cyndi Lauper and Patty Smythe and is now working on the soundtrack for a new Mickey Roarke movie called "Wild Orchid." You can also catch Paul on the pilot episode of a new talk show on MTV this month, sharing his passion for music with millions of television viewers.

"Music is a language," he says. "You use music to express emotions and thoughts, just like we use the language of English to express and communicate. And that's what music is to me—it's communication." For fans of Paul Pesco, the message is coming through loud and clear.