FIVE FIRSTS: Will Bernard of the Will Bernard Trio

NAME: Will Bernard
BAND AFFILIATION: The Will Bernard Trio
INSTRUMENT: Guitar

1. THE FIRST ALBUM I EVER BOUGHT WAS … The first album I ever bought was a classical music record – Schubert piano trios. I still love that record. The second record was Meet the Beatles… that changed my life as well!

2. THE FIRST CONCERT THAT I EVER SAW WAS .. I am not sure what the first concert I saw was, but the first one I went to by myself was Stephen Stills & Manassas.

3. THE FIRST MUSICAL INSTRUMENT I EVER OWNED OR PLAYED WAS … The first instrument I ever played was a piano. Then when somebody gave me an acoustic guitar, it was all over.

4. THE FIRST SONG THAT I EVER PERFORMED IN PUBLIC WAS … Probably the first song I ever performed was “Oh Happy Day” by the Edwin Hawkins Singers. At that point, I was playing violin, and we were backing up the jazz band in Longfellow School in Berkeley, California.

5. THE FIRST BAND I WAS EVER IN WAS … The first rock band I was in was in high school, and it was called Scream. We played classic rock, more or less.

Will Bernard – who has played with such envelope-pushing bands as Peter Apfelbaum’s Hieroglyphics Ensemble, the Stanton Moore Trio and T.J. Kirk, as well as Tom Waits, Steven Bernstein and Don Cherry – brings his own trio – featuring organist Brian Charette and drummer Eric Kalb – to the Parish Public House in Albany at 9pm on Friday (June 12). Tickets are $10 in advance; $13 at the door.