Born in 1968 in the back hills of Tennessee to his uncle's sister and sold on the black market for a pair of shoes; John Kelly was smuggled north to Brooklyn soon after. When at the age of 15 he was assessed by his high school marching band as "musically challenged" he decided to become a drummer.



Shortly after being fired from the US Postal Service for taking 6.4 weeks to deliver 3 pieces of mail, he stumbled into Type O Negative (succeeding departed skinsman Sal Abruscato), where from he was ejected on numerous occasions for smiling and having a healthy complexion.



When voted "most underpaid rock-star of 1999" by "Teen Magazine" he was quoted as saying, "I just wanna play those drums". In the fall of '99, John married and took the name of the first woman that spoke to him and weighed in under 190 lbs.