Before the internet, before streaming, before any algorithm decided what was worth listening to — there was a record store in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania called Wayne's World of Music, Movies & Games. And there was a band called Breaking Benjamin, pressing demo tapes, CDs, and VHS video tapes by hand, building something real from the ground up.

I was there for all of it.

The Store

Wayne's World of Music wasn't just a place to buy gear. It was a hub. A hangout. A place where musicians, fans, and anyone who cared about music came to talk, listen, and connect. In the mid to late 1990s, that's how scenes were built — not through clicks and shares, but through word of mouth, through a store owner who believed in what he was hearing, and through a community that showed up.

Breaking Benjamin was from Wilkes-Barre. That was their town. And my store was the outlet for that whole generation of fans in the area. I was playing their music, promoting them, and watching them build something real before anyone outside the region had heard their name.

I sold thousands of their debut CD out of that store.

Benjamin

Benjamin Burnley was the real deal from day one. Intense, focused, completely committed to the music. When you watched him perform or even just talked to him about what he was doing, you knew this wasn't a hobby. This was his life. The band was pressing demo tapes and VHS tapes and getting them into people's hands any way they could — and my store was one of the places those tapes landed.

That photo is from backstage, Wilkes-Barre, mid to late 1990s. Before the major label. Before the radio play. Before any of it.

Aaron

Aaron Fink, the guitarist, used to come into the store and just hang. We'd talk guitars, dig through blues CDs, geek out on gear. That's what the store was for — not just transactions, but conversations. Aaron was a serious player who knew his influences and wasn't shy about it. Those conversations in the aisles of Wayne's World of Music are the kind of thing you don't forget.

After Hours

And then there were the nights after closing. Door locked, guitars off the wall, no set list, no stage — just players playing. That photo is me and my student Callen Clark jamming after hours with Breaking Benjamin's drummer Chad Szeliga and bassist Aaron Bruch. The walls full of instruments, the store quiet except for the music. That's what a real music store feels like when it's working the way it's supposed to.

Aaron Bruch is still Breaking Benjamin's bassist to this day. And Chad Szeliga went on to drum for Zakk Wylde — Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist, one of the most ferocious players alive. Two guys who jammed after hours in my record store, and both of them went on to play at the highest level. That's the kind of thing that makes you realize you were standing in the middle of something special without fully knowing it at the time.

What It Meant

There's a version of music history that gets written in magazines and documentaries — the labels, the tours, the chart positions. And then there's the version that happened in stores like mine, in towns like Wilkes-Barre, in the years before any of that. The version where a band is pressing their own tapes and a store owner is putting them in people's hands because he believes in what he's hearing.

That's the version I lived. And I'm glad I was there for it.