Roc (Tony) grew up in an Italian neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago listening to the great Italian crooners like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jerry Vale, Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Al Martino and Louis Prima. Raised in an Italian family by a single father and grandmother, he spent a lot of time with his father, who owned stacks of eight-track tapes from all of these artists.

 

He showed an interest in music at a very young age singing along with recordings of Three Dog Night, Elvis, and Michael Jackson. He began learning music first by playing drums, guitar and eventually saxophone. By the age of twelve, he was deeply immersed in rock and roll. He formed the first of many garage bands with his childhood friend where he played bass guitar and sang. It didn’t take long before the bands were playing every weekend at parties, school dances, concerts, festivals and nightclubs. Even opening for The Drifters at age fifteen where Roc and some of the band members solicited patrons to pose as their fathers so they could enter the club. He attended high school at the prestigious Lane Technical High School in Chicago where music was offered as a “major” and students spent most of their school day studying, playing and practicing music. While in high school Roc also developed an interest in acting, starring in a school production of Bye Bye Birdie.

 

Prior to attending The Goodman School of Drama, he was a music major at NEIU where he studied saxophone and voice, while minoring in drama. This is where his interest in jazz took precedence and he stepped away from performing rock and roll. This college experience allowed him the opportunity to play with some outstanding young musicians who went on to have notable careers. Musicians like Art Porter, Bill Dickens, Eric Marienthal, and Ron Stout. He played in what was considered one of, if not the best, college jazz bands in the country. This band won the Notre Dame Jazz Festival and was selected as US Goodwill Ambassadors touring Eastern Europe. It was at this time that he became more familiar with, and influenced by, jazz vocalists like Mel Torme, Mark Murphy, Eddie Jefferson, and Jon Hendricks.

 

However, the acting bug bit harder after he got his first professional job playing a soldier in the Bolshoi Ballet's production of Romeo and Juliet at the Arie Crown Theatre. He later decided to transfer to The Goodman School of Drama and eventually headed to Los Angeles where he spent more than a decade studying and working as an actor in dozens of plays, television shows and movies. In Los Angeles, he continued his study of voice with renowned vocal coaches David Romano (Josh Groban) and Bob Corff (Mariah Carey).