Joel's was born June 19,1981 in West Allis, Wisconsin USA. His musical career started at the age of 10 with the violin. In total Joel played violin for 8 years and had achieved many honors such as:

- 3 Years of performance with the prestigious Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra

- Many years of being concertmaster in the school orchestra

- Over 50 medals from state music competitions

- Played with the UWM High School Honors Orchestra

At the age of 12 Joel discovered his love for guitar. After begging his parents to get him one, they finally did on his 13th birthday. Joel played for a year, then stopped playing for a whole year. When he turned 15, he was then inspired by Randy Rhoades. It was then that he decided to dedicate his life to guitar. Joel formed the band Crystal Reign at this time.

Crystal Reign played together for 3 years, doing original shred tracks and Satriani covers. Joel choose to move on from the band in July of 2000 to look for more dedicated musicians. It was at this time that he also created InsaneGuitar.com. In December of 2000, Joel formed the metal band Dark Shift with rhythm guitar monster Lewie Snyder. At this time, Joel had also been playing with renown songwriter, Greg Gerard. Playing with Greg gave Joel some great live experience and the band even got to play at Milwaukee's Summerfest 2001, for several thousand people.

In June of 2001, Dark Shift was signed to AJA Records. Joel left Greg's band in July of 2001 to concentrate on Dark Shift as a result of this. The band created a demo in October and sent it to over 25 countries. Tons of reviews, radio play, and interviews were generated because of this. In January 2002, Joel released a solo promotional demo. AJA pulled the band's funding 2 weeks before they were going to enter the studio to record the new album so they could invest in a bar. Dark Shift left AJA as result of this at the end of June. Joel then took on the enormous task or engineering and producing the whole album himself.

Dark Shift's debut album 'The Assault' was released in June of 2003. This lead to the band headlining a successful South American Tour, opening for a ton of national acts, and performing in festivals across the USA in 2004. Dark Shift won "Best Metal Act" in the 2004 New York International Music Festival!

2005 was busier than ever for Joel. Joel took on his 1st endorsements with Lava Cable and Eurotubes. Dark Shift stopped live performance to concentrate on the new album, except for a few select gigs including opening up for Gigantour (Megadeth, Dream Theater, Symphony X, etc..) in Milwaukee. Most of the year was spent in Joel's newly built professional recording studio writing and recording the new Dark Shift album "Gaining Ground." Many regional acts were also recorded at JTW Studios in this time. Joel also started writing his 1st book in 2005. The book, his solo album, and Dark Shift's 2nd record will be released in 2006. More to come...