New Jersey-based multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, sideman, bandleader, solo artist, producer, recording engineer, and record label owner John Taglieri was born August 19, 1967 in Hoboken, New Jersey and grew up in North Bergen in the same state. He started guitar lessons at the age of five, and eventually learned to play the drums, piano, bass guitar, and trumpet as well, and was recording and playing professionally by the age of 15. He earned a degree in audio engineering from the Center for the Media Arts in New York City and, following graduation, went on to play in several New Jersey bands. In 1999 Taglieri formed Leap Dog Music, an independent record label and publishing company, and released a debut solo album, Leap of Faith, the first of several largely acoustic-based solo projects he would write, record, and release under his own Leap Dog banner, including Half & Half (2003), NOW (2005, the same year the he opened his own full-service recording studio, Dawg Pound Studios), Wide Awake & Dreaming (2007), the EP Everything We Are (2008), Lives and Lives, Vol. 2 (a conceptual series of EPs and books, both released in 2009), and the six-song EPs Lucky #9 (2012), Southern Paradise (2013), and Days Like These (2014). Taglieri formed the band TAG in 2010 and released a full-length album, Foreward, under that moniker in 2010, also on Leap Dog Records. ~ Steve Leggett