Zuma grew up in East Los Angeles. His brother Ulyces and his friends would always play music. They shared a room and he tagged along wherever he could go with him. Zuma was totally into arcades and games like Carnival, Galaxian, and Star Castle to name a few. Zuma soon learned that Jvibe had a synthesizer. He was blown away by the Korg Polysix bass sounds. Over the next couple of years, Zuma found his niche playing electric bass. He was strongly influenced by the sound of Duran Duran and the funky sounds of disco, electro funk and jazz to name a few. He attended LACHSA (Los Angeles County High School for the Arts) where he excelled in jazz bass.

He soon found out there was very cool music in every style and listening to everything made him a better musician. At school he started a band called Liverpool with his guitarist friend Schmed (Ryan Maynes) and his drummer friend Jerry Rodriguez. Later, they added Denis Boder on lead vocals and a girl named Sandy on keyboards to the lineup. Eventually Sandy left and Jerry was replaced by Martin Klingman. This lineup was called Floor 13. Floor 13 would graduate and continue to play cruise ships, mountain tops, clubs, and many house parties. Eventually though, they split up in the mid 1990's. For a while Schmed and Zuma started worked with Marty in Lowbricks. It didn't last very long as Marty would go on to form his solo project with LACHSA alumni Mark Thomas on guitar. Schmed, Zuma and Tom Sanford re-formed with Denis to create Date with Dizzy. In a nutshell, they were published by EMI and signed to Interscope Records. They traveled to Hoboken, New Jersey to record their album with the help of producer John Baxter from The Reflex fame.

His current projects are recording tracks with eBboy, spanish rock groups Nefalin and La Razon, working on music with longtime friend Jvibe, and writing and recording material for other artists in the rock, pop, and electronic realms. Zuma has recorded tracks with Soundshaft Music, EMI, Interscope records and various independents.

In Zuma's words-"I constantly am being asked what is my favorite band or what my major influences are. Asking a musician this seems also impossible at times but one day I had a thought on how to put a dent in it and start to paint a picture of the answer. A simple idea, really. An A to Z favorite list. Here it is.

A Arcadia-they create such an awesome mood and listen to that fretless bass!
B Beatles (close tie with The Beach Boys)
C Chic-Bernard Edwards kicks ASS!
D Duran Duran-my greatest influence
E E.L.O.
F Fever
G George Michael
H Human League
I INXS
J Jaco Pastorius (close tie with Jean Michel Jarre)
K Kaja Goo Goo
L Led Zepelin
M Malo
N Nirvana
O OMD-the first concert I ever went to with Jvibe
P The Police (close tie with Prince)
Q Queen
R Robotech Soundtrack (by Ulpio Minucci, Arlon Ober and Michael Bradley)
S Stevie Wonder
T The Smiths (ok so maybe it should be an S but I had to sneak it in)
U U2
V Vangelis
W Weather Report
X XTC
Y Yaz(oo)-Situation was the first LP I ever bought.
Z Ziggy Stardust

(c) 2001 Base 12, All rights reserved