Bellmore music school still rockin' after four years

Different paths led the three founders of The Rock Underground to one another in 2010. Paul Casanova, now a guitarist in the Brooklyn-based band Of Earth, had experience in the music industry as a performer, booking agent and instructor. Another lifelong musician, Billy Handy Jr., was a former financial manager looking to trade his Wall Street office for a more creative environment. And Steve Eplan, a mortgage broker and manager of Bellmore’s Perri Funding Group, learned from his teenaged children that local young people didn’t have anywhere to learn about and share their love of music.

Nearly four years later, The Rock Underground has become more than a music school. The trio said students are learning valuable life lessons within the walls of the Bedford Avenue storefront.

“We’re not trying to build monkeys –– we are trying to build musicians,” Casanova said. “We don’t want kids to just mimic the players. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that they are equipped with the professional skill set that allows them to have versatility and marketability.”

The Rock Underground, the trio said, has and continues to develop in ways they never imagined. With many of the students who began taking lessons since the day the business opened now reaching their senior year of high school, The Rock Underground’s offerings continue to expand to meet the community’s needs.

Casanova explained that the full-service, all-ages music school has between 150 and 200 students enrolled in various programs at a given time. A poor national economy, though, led to a drop in enrollment in lessons after an “initial surge,” he said.

Then came Superstorm Sandy. Handy noted that the school lost 40 percent of its students after Sandy swept across Long Island, destroying the homes of a number of students.

More than a year later, students are starting to return. “We have people that had to fall out because their schedules were completely interrupted,” he said. “A huge percentage of students are now starting to come back.”