Michel Solis

Michel Solis (born June 1, 1960 in Montebello, California), is an American painter, photographer and musician.

Early Interest in Music

Solis was interested in music at a young age. He showed an Elvis Presley fascination at the age of 10, followed by a Beatles fascination a the age of 11. The first record he bought was "Revolver" by the Beatles. He began to teach himself to play guitar by learning Beatles' songs.

chool

Michel Solis attend St Benedict school in Montebello up until grade 8 and then moved 7 miles (11 km) away to the town of Whittier. He did not fit into his new school environment and ended up getting into a lot of trouble as a young teenager.

Tower Records

After being expelled from high school he drifted to Hollywood during the punk heyday of 1977. In 1979 he landed a job at Tower Records in West Covina, California as the punk and import record buyer (his cousin was already an employee of the store). He was hired after a 15 minute interview which consisted mostly about how much he liked the Beatles. The store manager was also a Beatle fan and spent most of the interview talking about how she saw the Beatles in 1965.

While working at Tower Records he met and befriended a local punk rock star named Rik L Rik, who was a regular customer at the very large record store. Soon they, along with a couple of other Tower Records employees, were going to all of the Hollywood punk shows. They also spent a lot of time at Rik's Covina home.

Bands

After years of playing in short lived punk bands, he eventually joined Thee Undertakers which soon disbanded shortly afterwards. He then started the hard rock punk band Play Dead and released one single "Downtown America" which is long out of print.

After Play Dead disbanded, Solis released a solo single under the name Michael Michaelson Jr. which sparked interest from Columbia Records. During this time Michel developed a narcotics habit which took over his life for the next several years.

Solis eventually cleaned up and decided to visit old friends in New York City where, by fate, he ended up playing guitar and singing backup for Dee Dee Ramone for a one off show in NYC. They recorded "Horror Hospital" produced by Paul Kostabi, and played Dee Dee's last advertised New York City show at the Spa Club in June 2001. This show was recorded and later released as "Too Tough To Die Live" on Art Monkey Records.

Solis now lives in New York City where he is painter, photographer, and musician. He plays in the New York City band Hypno-Twist. He has a solo CD on Wanker Records, Germany.