Fred's Mini Bio

VOCALS/BASS GUITAR

Stage Name(s):
‘Alfredo Sauce’, or ‘Fred Sauce’ if informal.

Hometown:
Kenosha, Wisconsin

How and when did you join the band?
I co-founded RSR with former guitarist Art Garza on December 1, 2002. I came up with the name ‘Red Sauce Rules!’ that same week while enjoying lunch at a local pizza restaurant: (“Hey! This red sauce RULES! Hmm…that would be a good name for a band!”) The original ‘red sauce’ was spaghetti sauce, although it has come to mean any red sauce (such as picante salsa) over time.

Who are your musical influences?
The Beatles, the Moody Blues, Crosby Stills and Nash, and the Guess Who. I study rock music and have an extensive collection of albums and CDs, although in recent years I mostly listen to jazz. (Shout out to my friends at KRTU!)

What was your most memorable RSR gig? Why?
Hmm. The KZEP-sponsored Halloween gig at Hemisfair Plaza in 2008, where we got to open for the Pat Travers Band. Something like a thousand people in the audience, and we all felt like real rock stars!

What was your worst performance experience?
Depends what constitutes a ‘performance’. There was the time that we drove all the way to Seguin and set up the whole stage, only to never play a note (the client delayed the show an hour, and then a terrific thunder-storm blew through the outdoor venue and we barely made it out). The worst gig we actually played was New Years Eve 2007, when the club owners decided to have a drunken ‘chocolate cake fight’ RIGHT in front of the stage and all our gear got blasted with cake and frosting…oh, and then the main speakers completely blew up about 20 minutes later.

What songs do you most enjoy playing?
Usually, whatever songs we just learned! Some songs (like ‘Night Moves’) never seem to get old for me, while others I can’t believe people still want to hear! And then there are the songs that we have played fantastically, but the audience never seemed to ‘get’ (‘I’ve Got a Feeling’, ‘Closer to Home/I’m Your Captain’, ‘Lightning Crashes’, ‘Glycerine’, to name just a few.)

What is your current instrumental setup?
Peavey ‘Foundation’ bass (best neck in the business!) through a Fender ‘Bassman’ 400w head and Behringer 4x10” cabinet. Our PA is a Mackie 808M, and all of our speakers are Peavey.

What would you like to be when you grow up?
I should have been a lawyer but I hated going to school. So I’m a Networked Solutions Pre-Sales Analyst (exciting!) by day and an aging musician by night.

Other hobbies?
Once upon a time I was active in the collector car hobby, but politics, backstabbing, and ill-will spoiled that for me. And gas prices.

Favorite TV show?
Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and/or Everybody Loves Raymond.

Favorite Movie?
Movies are a mass-produced collection of predictable pop-culture clichés directed at the lowest common denominator, and shouldn’t given the same consideration as ‘pure’ art forms such as music or the graphic arts.

And for those who might counter that movies are merely the combination of the ‘pure’ arts of audio and visual, I submit ‘Across the Universe’ as a perfect example of the worst of the genre (at least since ‘Forrest Gump’.) As the only living person who never bothered to sit through ‘Star Wars’, ‘Caddyshack’, or even ‘The Blues Brothers’, and I will gladly debate anyone who…what? Oh. I guess I’d better give an answer. I’ll go with ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ or ‘Apocalypse Now’. And ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, but that’s a whole other weird area.

Favorite Book?
I don’t really read fiction. I love to read anything by rock critics such as Dave Marsh, Robert Cristgau, or even Chuck Eddy (when I can follow him). I love trivia books like ‘The Straight Dope’ by Cecil Adams. Lately, I’ve been reading Ann Rule, but that’s a whole other weird area.

Favorite Food?
Cheese: I’m from Wisconsin. And most anything Tammy makes for me.

Favorite Drink?
Wyler’s Raspberry. And lately, Cran-Grape. Unusually for a musician, I only drink alcohol on occasion.

Favorite Color?
Blue. No, yel--aughhhhh! (I didn’t say I never saw ANY movies…)

Pet Peeves?
My favorite rants are (in no particular order): San Antonio traffic control/programming; oil speculation/gas prices; ‘Ug’ (who buys ugly houses); flip-flops; 'boom' cars; political ‘groupspeak’; movies (see above).

Something most people might not know about me:
I actually consider ‘Monster Truck’ racing a sport.

Favorite quotes:
“Is there someone ELSE we could talk to?” —Monty Python & the Holy Grail
“Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.” —John Lennon

Former RSR Members: Art Garza (2002-05); Hector Reyes (2003-04); John Wilrich (2003); Terry Trevino (2003-2008); John Franco (2004);
Dallas Floyd (2008); Jef Maldonado (2005-08); Tony Salinas (2005-07, 2008-09).