Classmate profile #2

Seeing him wearing a Giants baseball cap and T-shirt, it is easy to assume Nick Esposito’s greatest passion is baseball, and it is easy to be wrong.

This revelation is even more of a shock considering Esposito’s father is a 27-year veteran of coaching high school baseball and both of his brothers play baseball.

Even with all of this baseball influence, for 21-year-old Esposito, Classic Rock is where his interest really lies.

For Esposito, baseball never held his interest because he felt it was boring.

“I played until the fourth grade,” said Esposito. “I was the one in the left field picking the grass.”

Even though Esposito is not consumed by it, baseball draws the Esposito family together.

When Esposito and his brothers, Nate and Vinny, were young, they used to go to Granite Bay High School to play with the baseball team their father, Pat Esposito, coached.

“We all support the Giants and Yankees, and the whole family (aunts, uncles and grandparents) have fun with it,” said Esposito’s mother, Julie Esposito.

Although Esposito grew up with an extensive baseball influence from his father, Mr. Esposito gave more to his son than just baseball by introducing him to Classic Rock.

“When I was a kid, my dad played that music for us all of the time,” Esposito said.

His father’s influence on his choice in music shows up in Esposito’s favorite band, Led Zeppelin, who were what his father would play, above the protests of his mother who wanted more positive music around the kids.

“At home when they were little, we had Christian Rock most of the time,” said Mrs. Esposito.

This restriction never stopped Esposito from developing a much deeper appreciation in junior high school for Classic Rock.

He took piano and guitar lessons and went on to give a few performances in high school of Classic Rock.

“He’s like a jukebox for Classic Rock, and it’s awesome to see how excited he gets when a good song comes on the radio,” said Mallory McCarron, Esposito’s girlfriend of nearly two years.

In Esposito’s opinion the most important thing about the music is not the lyrics but instead is the sound of the song.

He appreciates the ingenuity of Classic Rock bands as they pushed back against the happy musical styles of the 1950s while dealing with Vietnam.

“The sound is in your face,” Esposito said. “You can look at a society through the music.”

Even in other genres of music like Heavy Metal and Punk, Esposito is able to set aside the intense vocals and focus on the music that is backbone of the songs.

When McCarron decided to broaden his musical horizons into Country, she made sure to take into account Esposito’s love of sound.

“I knew he loved big guitar ‘electric’ solos, so I showed him artists such as Jason Aldean and Brad Paisley,” McCarron said. “They really know how to rock a good electric guitar solo.”

Esposito’s appreciation for Classic Rock is deeper than just its aesthetics because he believes that it served as a gateway for the styles of music that are around today.

The Classic Rock style and sound eventually allowed genres like Rap, Heavy Metal and Punk to spring up, while the more acoustic music of the 1960s lead into the Easy Listening genre.

“It’s like comparing dinosaur bones to modern day birds,” Esposito said. “Classic Rock was the precursor for everything that we have now.”

Although Esposito admits that he enjoys all genres of music, he has a problem with what he feels is the creation of music not for the music’s sake but for the fame of the artist.

“Mainstream music has forgotten its purpose. We’re missing the point.”

If Nick Esposito walks by dressed in his Giants fan gear with headphones in his ears, don’t be surprised if Classic Rock is playing instead of the latest baseball game because for him, the music is the most important part.