Happy Birthday Tico Torres
Best known as the drummer for Bon Jovi, Tico Torres was a jazz fan as a youth and studied music with Joe Morello. In 1969 he played drums for the psychedelic rock band Six Feet Under.
Born on October 7, 1953, in New York, and brought up in the Colonia section of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. His parents, Emma and Héctor, immigrated from Cuba in 1948. He attended John F. Kennedy Memorial High School in Iselin. He has a sister named Opi.
Before joining Bon Jovi in 1983 he had already played live with Joe Cerisano aka Silver Condor in the New Jersey Rock circuit, and in the studio with Franke and the Knockouts, Pat Benatar, Chuck Berry, Cher, Alice Cooper and Stevie Nicks, recording a total of 26 albums with these artists. Tico was also one of the drummers auditioned by KISS in 1980 after original drummer Peter Criss left the band.
Torres was the original drummer for the glam rock band T. Roth and Another Pretty Face and played on their debut album Face Facts.
Torres met Alec John Such while playing with a band called Phantom's Opera and it was this friendship which led to him joining Bon Jovi. When Jon Bon Jovi, the lead singer of the band, approached Torres, he was put off by the fact that Jon was 9 years younger than he was. Regardless of this he said it was Jon's charismatic appearance and watching Jon perform that attracted him to join the band.
Known as "The Hitman," Tico discovered another talent: painting. He has exhibited his art since 1994. The successful first show was at the Ambassador Galleries in Soho, New York. Tico is a self-taught painter, who paints expressive pictures which show scenes from everyday life and the life with the band.
His painting talent was shown in one of the three videos made for the single "Who Says You Can't Go Home." There is a scene in one of the videos showing Jon Bon Jovi, David Bryan, and Richie Sambora painting a wall of a house a solid color, while Tico is at the other end of the room, painting an extravagant picture of a house surrounded by a multi-colored heart on the same wall. His art can be found at http://www.walnutst.com/.
Tico and his first wife divorced soon after the formation of Bon Jovi in 1983. In 1996, Torres married Czech-born model Eva Herzigová in Sea Bright, New Jersey. The ceremony was attended by their closest friends and family including Donald Trump and the members of Bon Jovi. The band serenaded Eva and her husband with the hit single "Always" during the dance. Their marriage ended two years later. Tico married Maria Alejandra in September 2001, his third marriage. They have a son, Hector Alexander, born on January 9, 2004. ~ Source | Wikipedia
