After school, I worked as a dishwasher at my uncle’s restaurant — the Tally Ho Inn in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey. It was honest work. Hot, steamy, never-ending work. I didn’t know much about life yet, but I did know one thing: no one ever writes songs about washing dishes.

My uncle was a real ball-buster, and I learned about the birds and the bees from him in a very graphic, darkly humorous way — the kind of education that could make your face turn bright red in an instant. Let’s just say I was “schooled” whether I wanted to be or not. But one thing I did know for sure by then was that I had become a pretty solid guitar player. I could sight-read old-school sheet music, which felt like a superpower at that age. My buddy Greg, on the other hand, was the better chord man. He had the rhythm, I had the reading — and together we made a pretty good team. Sort of like musical Batman and Robin… if Batman still lived with his parents.

Two weeks before New Year’s Eve, my Uncle John got into a fistfight with his keyboard player. I wasn’t present for the actual scuffle, but I did witness the musical fallout. The keyboard player was fired on the spot. Just like that, Uncle John’s band went from “fully staffed” to “acoustic emergency.”

Still red-faced and fired-up, he came storming into the kitchen where I was scrubbing plates like my life depended on it. He leaned over the sink and asked if I could grab my guitar — and maybe my friend Greg — to back him up on New Year’s Eve.

Now, when your uncle storms into your workplace demanding you perform in front of a room full of paying customers, you don’t really negotiate. You just say yes and hope for the best. I said yes, even though my stomach immediately tied itself into a sailor’s knot. I was excited. I was terrified. I had also never been paid actual money to play music before.

My mom, sensing this was clearly my “big break,” sewed matching vests for Greg and me to wear for the gig. Nothing says “serious musician” quite like having your wardrobe personally supervised by your mother. We looked less like a band and more like a folk duo that had escaped from a high-school talent show.

When New Year’s Eve finally rolled around, Greg and I played a bunch of our own songs and backed my uncle on a few of his numbers. Against all odds — and possibly against good judgment — the night actually went great. It was my first real gig. I was playing for an audience. People were listening. Some of them were even smiling. A few were dancing. Nobody threw food. By restaurant standards, it was a total success.

As the night went on, my uncle became steadily more enthusiastic about his relationship with the bottle. The music got louder. The stories got longer. The singing got… creative. Greg and I did what any two nervous teenage guitar players would do in that situation — we kept strumming and tried very hard not to make eye contact.

At the end of the night, we were each handed fifty dollars in cash. Fifty bucks. For two kids who were used to playing for free and washing dishes for minimum wage, it might as well have been a record deal. We walked out into the cold New Jersey night feeling like rock stars in homemade vests.

It wasn’t just my first paid gig — it was the first night I understood that music could be more than something I loved. It could be something that followed me. Something that stayed.

And it all started because a keyboard player threw a punch.