Our Team

Damian Boyar

Damian is a musician and video game tester. He worked on both the Rock Band Network and Rock Band 2 DLC at Harmonix and was the first non-Harmonix audio team member to author a song with the RBN tools. Born in Boston, MA, Damian loves the Patriots, Red Sox, Dunkin Donuts, chowda, cranberries, and lots of other wicked cool stuff. He also plays multiple instruments and is in a number of bands active in the New England scene. A lover of most music, Damian often finds himself gravitating towards acts that make other people shriek and run away with their hands over their ears. He is supremely excited to be authoring songs with RockGamer Studios and looks forward to taking the Rock Band Network by its pointy, devilish, metal-horns.

Tom Brown – @Alakaiser

Tom Brown

A gamer and musician almost since birth, Tom discovered the perfect storm of his two loves when he was introduced to music gaming. He has devoted a significant amount of time to the games over the past four years, and has remained involved with the community surrounding it on various levels throughout that time. After a successful stay with Harmonix Music Systems, Tom was quick to jump at the opportunity to work with the Rock Band Network at RockGamer Studios.

Tom has gone through various musical phases in his life, ranging from classic rock, country, hip-hop (including an ill-advised purchase of a Sisqo CD, but let’s not dwell on that), alternative, blues, classical, and jazz. He doesn’t like to say he listens to everything, but he does like to say he’ll listen to as much as he possibly can until his ears stop working or his heart stops beating. He will also fight you to the death if you tell him Dave Grohl isn’t awesome. If you meet him, offer him some Mountain Dew. He’ll appreciate it.

Isabel Dávila – @SaikoSakura

Isabel Dávila

Izzy is a game tester, photographer, and artist from New York City. Music and video games have been in her life ever since she could hold an Atari 2600 controller. Thanks to a musical family, she was raised on an a variety of music from ’60s rock, ’70s salsa, blues, jazz, classical, and dance. In the early 90’s, Izzy was introduced to an import of Dance Dance Revolution in a Chinatown Arcade, and has since been a devoted dance/guitar/rhythm gamer.

Izzy is a Community Manager for the largest all-girl gaming group, and often records her vocal performances while playing with Chris (aka S1ckh4nds), which you can find on her YouTube channel. She also hosts a weekly Rock Band karaoke night in NYC, along with Miguel.

Ted Grabar – @tedgrabar

Ted Grabar

Ted is a hardcore Rock Band player from Southern California with a passion for music and rhythm games. His music listening used to consist only of average rock radio stations, until he picked up that one plastic guitar that made his whole life change, exposing him to a world of music from classic acts and newer, lesser-known bands. Ted’s Rock Band specialty is Vocals, in which he has achieved a perfect score on every song in both Rock Band and Rock Band 2 and was ranked in the top 10 vocalists in the original Rock Band. He is very familiar with what Rock Band vocalists and players in general expect out of their tracks, and he is very excited to be a part of the RBN and RockGamer Studios!

Ryan Henwood – @ryanhenwood

Ryan Henwood

Ryan has been a sound designer, mixer, composer and all around audio nut for 6 years professionally. He started in the film and television industry working on projects for HBO, Universal Studios, BBC, CBC, Cineflix and many more. But he couldn’t resist his true passion for video games and has been pushing his way into the gaming world.

Music has always run in Ryan’s veins. He released his first independent album when he was 20 and has been a familiar face in the Toronto scene. Always up for the challenge of learning new genres, he has performed with rock, punk and hip hop groups across Ontario.

Christopher Julio – @s1ckh4nds

Christopher Julio

Raised on a healthy diet of 70’s prog rock and 80’s new wave. Spent most of the 90’s as an electronic music DJ and composer. Rediscovered his rockin’ roots in the 00’s and enjoys most indie and alternative rock groups. An avid fan and player of rhythm games from the first wave of Japanese imports in the arcades to the most recent guitar-based games. Well known for work in the online Rock Band community by posting preview videos of the newest songs to be released each week, and has been recognized by Harmonix with an in-game message for playing over 600 songs perfectly on bass.

Jeff Lyons

What started as a way of escaping high school P.E. class has turned into a lifelong obsession. At 13, Jeff picked up his first pair of drum sticks. At 17, he picked up his first bass. He still plays both regularly, as well as guitar and a little keyboard. Mostly self-taught, Jeff writes, tracks, mixes, sings, and plays bass for RED9, a So Cal-based rock trio.

When not playing music, Jeff works as a graphic and web designer. When he’s not doing that, he’s playing video games of all shapes and sizes. From the hit of every party, ROCK BAND, to popular first-person shooters. If there’s time, he’ll spend it with his wife and 2 kids…;-)

Miguel Molinari – @smeeguel

Miguel Molinari

Miguel is always coming up with wild ideas, like “Hey, let’s start a karaoke night in the city,” or “Hey, let’s start a company that puts songs on Rock Band!”, most of which revolve around a certain rock-themed game.

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Miguel grew up exposed to mainstream American rock and pop, as well as the wave of latin rock that invaded the island in the mid-’90s. It wasn’t until later in life, and partly due to Rock Band, that he discovered “classics” such as The Who, Rush, and AC/DC. His proficiency for making a fool of himself while holding a plastic instrument has led him to share the stage with real bands such as Motley Crue, The B-52s, Papa Roach, Trapt and Buckcherry. When he’s not plotting his next world-domination scheme, Miguel is busy designing and producing video games in New York City.

Daniel Piacampo – @MithinDSN

Daniel Piacampo

Daniel Piacampo is an independant game developer out of Toronto. Winner of the Vortex 2008 Internet Games competition, Daniel has even been given the opportunity to speak at Microsoft’s EnergizeIT conference about the huge potential for the XNA platform and how it allows for a more open and creative medium for game development.

He’s been playing rhythm games since the good old arcade days and proudly holds the title as World Cyber Games Canadian Guitar Hero Champion for both 2008 and 2009 as well as placing 2nd at the Pan-American Games in Mexico. Daniel now brings his passion for gaming to the Rock Band Network/RockGamer Studios and can’t wait to see the platform grow to its potential.

James Salomone

James eats and breathes music, when he isn’t awake, he is dreaming about it. He started performing musically 20 years ago on the Trumpet in the Jr. High band, since then he has become fluent in several instruments, most notably Bass Guitar and Guitar. His most notable musical success comes from his years spent playing and touring with Southern California based independant rock group RX Bandits. When James isn’t listening to music he is probably playing Rock Band, Rockgamer Studios has given him the opportunity to combine 2 of his passions into 1 rockin’ package. James also enjoys playing Poker, solving Rubik’s cubes, the Lakers, looking at stock prices, and spending time with his girlfriend, dog, and family. He also has an unhealthy obsession with Radiohead, The Beatles, Fugazi, and Pink Floyd.

Leigh Winik – @GurnKiller

Leigh Winik

Leigh joins the RockGamer Studios team with an extensive musical background. He started playing piano at the age of 4, then picked up his first pair of drumsticks at 12 and never looked back! Aside from earning a Bachelor’s of Music Degree in Percussion Performance in 2005, he has played in numerous bands in the tri-state area in genres ranging from hard rock to heavy metal to jam band to ska/punk.

When the original Rock Band was released in November of 2007, he quickly became well known in the community as one of the top drummers, along with releasing numerous videos on YouTube (both RockBand and real drum vids!). Although he doesn’t play Rock Band “competitively” anymore, he still enjoys playing the newset DLC and is so psyched to be charting with RockGamer Studios!