The son of a bartending single mom, Mike spent the majority of his formative pre-teen years watching movies from the back seat of a 1972 Rambler at the local drive-in. It was here that he first discovered his passion for cinema and was exposed to films such as Taxi Driver, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Gloria, Dirty Harry, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
A few years later he discovered his passion for music, picked up a guitar and never stopped playing. At the age of 19 he moved to Hollywood to attend the Musicians Institute and spent the following decade teaching guitar and music theory. It was during this time he first picked up a video camera and began making short films - editing them together with two vcr's. Excited by his discoveries of being a potential filmmaker he eventually picked up a 16mm Arriflex and a computer and made a couple of shorts films - Chainsaw Love (1998) and One Dollar Girl (2000).
By this time Mike's passion for music began to wane. Becoming disenchanted with teaching and never 'doing' he joined a friends band (Low Flying Owls) and soon found himself touring the country, moving up the CMJ charts, courted by record labels, appearing on numerous television shows including The Soprano's and eventually going nowhere. During his time playing with Low Flying Owls he continued to develop his filmmaking skills by making music videos for local bands. At the end of 2004 Mike decided to call it quits with the band and devote all his energy to writing and directing his own movies.
Having directly emerged from the music industry Mike decided his first project should come from a place that was close to him; from a world he understood. He found his inspiration in the music of fellow musician and Brian Jonestown Massacre alumni Kirpatrick Thomas. He first met Thomas at the CMJ music festival in 2003. The two quickly became friends and Mike soon discovered Thomas's obsession with the west and his own original take on the music of the spaghetti western genre in the form of a pseudo soundtrack called The Legend of God's Gun. Listening to that soundtrack Mike realized he had to make it an authentic one. The idea of making a rock-n-roll spaghetti style western with a bunch of touring musicians not only seemed like the most logical step for him, it seemed to be written in the stars...
After The Legend of God's Gun runs the festival gamut Mike planned to direct and produce his next original feature entitled Desiree Dream, a ghost story about a clairvoyant songwriter.
Indican Pictures
