Even as a member of numerous Rochester bands, drummer (sometimes bassist, sometimes keyboardist) Rob Filardo always appeared reluctant to take any credit. Whenever discussing influential groups he belonged to - like The Veins, The Thundergods, Duke Galaxy and the Pipeliners, The Priests, and so on - he would refer to the bands as "them" as opposed to "us." He would applaud the band along with the audience while he was on stage. He put out their records. He was a fan.

"But it's them," he says. "That's how I looked at it. I didn't want to take credit because I was a fan. It seems funny to be a fan of yourself. Inside I'm proud and I know when it's right. It's just hard to admit."

Because of that odd internal conflict, Filardo never quite considered himself on the inside. In reality he was instrumental in the success of all those bands and, to a certain degree, the Rochester music scene as a whole for the past 20 years. With most of the bands associated with Filardo rooted somewhere in the twist and shout of mid- to late 60's-inspired garage rock, Rochester began to develop something like a signature sound. Sure, Rochester also featured unified metal, jam-band, singer-songwriter, and blues scenes - among others - but the garage-rock acts took on the feel of a movement, one with its own momentum. Albums were getting cranked out and shows were getting put together with awesome, multi-band bills.

Filardo was at the heart of it, playing in some bands and getting others gigs in clubs he booked, like The Bug Jar and later Boulder Coffee Co. He was the cotter pin, the utility knife, the go-to guy. The man could have stood to brag a little.

But just as the scene thrived on his energy and creativity, and danced to the solid beat of his drums, it also suffered as drug and alcohol abuse began to creep in and slowly envelop Filardo's life. Bands fell apart and friendships were compromised as Filardo fell deeper and deeper into addiction.

Though he has no degree, Filardo is somewhat of a musicologist, an ultimate rock 'n' roll fan. He had all the records, he knows all the songs, went to all the shows, and read all the books. Why then, with the knowledge of so many rock 'n' roll tragedies before him - Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, to name a few - as well as the horror stories of those who actually made it out alive, did he think he was any different?

"I guess you could simplify it," says Filardo. "I was that stupid."

Now six months into an out-patient rehab program, Filardo is picking up his drumsticks again, planning a New Year's Eve reunion-extravaganza with many of his old bands. He's even toying with the notion of bringing back Garage-Pop Records, his local record label. But more importantly, he's clean, and trying to clean up the mess left in the wake of his addiction.

It's common for an addict to hit bottom before beginning the road to recovery. After a car accident, a couple of nights behind bars, shattered friendships, and a string of lost jobs couldn't rattle him or slow him down, Filardo says he finally bottomed out in early 2011.

"I got fired from The Veins in February," he says. "Our last show was January 1st." He couldn't hold down a straight job, either. "There's plenty of bosses - and friends - I've fucked over, disappointed, done wrong," he says.

Though he was able to keep his addiction somewhat under wraps for some time, Filardo is now quite candid, and eager to talk about his struggle in order to move on. "I've been a drug addict and alcoholic for 20 years," he says. "I've used them and abused them for 20 years. But once I got fired it escalated really bad."

"I did everything," he says. "Everything. The difference is I didn't have the money to have a huge habit."

Another oft-heard phrase regarding recovery is a pivotal moment of clarity. After his forced split with the band, Filardo realized that maybe he really did have a problem. "I just had an epiphany," he says. "I'd never asked for help before, but I thought I'd give it a shot."

He had burned a lot of bridges and shattered a lot of trust, but before he could address and atone, he needed to get well and back to the person he was - and the person those around him knew and loved.

Filardo grew up in Spencerport and has played drums for 30 of his 42 years. He is the master of a savage, driving, and uncluttered beat. It's textbook rock 'n' roll.

"The Beatles were a huge influence on me," he says. "But before I knew who the hell The Beatles were it was KISS, and Elton John, and Alice Cooper, because they looked all freaky. I thought everybody looked that way."

Young Filardo wanted to be in a band, but was too shy to be up front. "So I figured drums were the way to do it," he says. His dad, local rock 'n' roll legend Bobby Francis, got him a drum set and he parked himself on the throne, his headphones blasting. There were a few lessons at Hochstein but he felt no need for paradiddles or theory.

"I just wanted to learn how to play," he says. "I didn't want to learn jazz or fills or be Brann Dailor," he says, referring to the Rochester native who now drums for the internationally renowned metal outfit Mastodon.

Filardo's first big concert experience came at age 13, when he saw Van Halen on its Fair Warning Tour at the War Memorial in 1981. "It was kind of an eye-opener," he says. "I had never smelled pot before. I thought something was wrong with the singer because he was drunk. I didn't realize that was the show. It was loud and I liked it."

"It wasn't until I saw The Ramones at Idols four or five years later that I discovered there was an underworld," Filardo says. "Clubs, punk, do-it-yourself - but still musical." Filardo had found a home.

His first band was American Vandals, founded in 1986. He describes the band as "punk, REM-type goofy shit." "We were bent on being original even if it was bad," he says.

American Vandals morphed into the anarchistic, chaotic, Manson Family-friendly band Zezozose in 1990. "Zezozose was more, ‘Let's be heavy, but let's be weird and get attention,'" Filardo says.

Filardo picked up tricks to enhance Zezozose's impact from local performance-art pop-rocker Koo Koo Boy. "He taught me how to manipulate the audience with posters and newsletters and visuals behind you," Filardo says. "Zezozose's music actually wasn't that great if you go back and listen to the records, but when you were watching the show, you didn't notice that."

Then the music got good. Zezozose broke up, and members Filardo and guitarist Joe "Jet" DiProjetto (Filardo's brother-in-law) went on to form The Veins in 1994 as a counter-response to their previous band.

"We said, ‘Let's do the opposite,'" Filardo says. ‘"Let's make some music, forget about the show.' It was all about the music; no smashing TVs and smoke." The band was as melodic as it was heavy, with a clever mix of haunting lyricism and loud guitar.

Dave and Dan Snyder, formerly of oddball indie-pop outfit Dog's Life, were putting power-pop sensation The Quitters together at the same time. They asked Filardo to join.

"Dave and Dan are such great songwriters," Filardo says. "I couldn't say no." The two bands' styles were different enough that Filardo could keep them separated mentally.

"And I had been playing with Duke Galaxy and the Pipeliners since 1992," he says. The local surf-rock group offered him something different from The Veins and The Quitters, so he found himself in three bands at once. Then in 1994 The Thundergods came calling to Filardo, making it band No. 4. What The Thundergods lacked in proficiency, the band made up for with sheer volume and guts. "And I said, ‘Hey, I can do this,'" says Filardo. "And I did. It all kind of worked out."

In 1999 Filardo founded Garage-Pop Records with Dan Snyder. Over the next few years Garage-Pop released albums from Filardo's various bands, as well as local bands that weren't initially his, like The Priests in 2005.

"The Priests came next," he says. "And I was a fan the minute I heard their shit coming out of their practice spot. It was garage, but they couldn't figure out how to play ‘Louie Louie' and I was like, ‘I love it. They're so cool looking, they hate everything. Who are they?' They came out of nowhere."

The band released one CD before its bass player split unannounced. Filardo stepped in, figuring he would play until the band found somebody else. "They never got anybody. Even though I played bass and keyboard, I was excited because it was so creative," says the man who typically had served as a drummer. "Every week we'd get together, we wouldn't talk, we'd just create music." The Priests signed with Pittsburgh-based label Get Hip Recordings and toured Europe and the States before imploding in 2007. During that time Filardo says cocaine worked its way into his routine.

"Nothing was really a problem until The Priests disbanded," he says. "There must have been a level of disillusionment or depression after that. That's a time I can pinpoint where drug use escalated and I discovered opiates and pharmaceuticals."

"Starting in 2007 things began to decline rather quickly," Filardo says. "I lost interest in a lot of things." The Quitters and The Thundergods were on their way out. Garage-Pop Records began to flounder, too, despite a good run with multiple Rochester releases for bands like The Grinders, The UV Rays, The Purrs, and The Vertigo-gos.

"It was great for a while until I fucked it up," says Filardo. "Not paying the bands, not putting shit out, not doing what I said I was going to do. Everyone started losing interest. It was like holding on to something that wasn't there. Rock 'n' roll and drugs, they didn't go well together at all. You have to do one or the other."

Rock 'n' roll had been everything to Filardo, but in the thrall of his addiction it offered little sanctuary. "It was kind of stressful after a while. I loved to perform, but during the performance I was looking forward to the after party - a lot. And that slowly began to creep on stage, partying before going on stage, partying instead of going on stage." Things slowly got out of control.

"I used to be completely 150 percent into everything," Filardo says. "Even when it wasn't rewarding. ‘I gotta be in every band, gotta be at every show, gotta put out records.' But my quality went down, my performance, my dependability. I just wasn't showing up. Blowing off practices, blowing off shows. And the fans... You let your performances suffer because you don't care anymore. You're absent, you're just not there."

Since The Veins fired him earlier this year, Filardo has been without a band. But right now he's more concerned with patching up personal connections.

"I started rehab and I started feeling better," he says. "All this stuff was on my mind; recovery, wrongdoing. And I said - about The Veins - ‘It doesn't matter. Who gives a shit?' It's our friendship that really matters."

Filardo is focusing on accentuating the positive and has put together a New Year's Eve garage-rock spectacular starring the original line-ups of The Quitters and The Thundergods, along with Nod, Muler, Intrinsic, and DJ El Destructo. He's even considering resurrecting Garage-Pop upon the urgings of the young and grungy kids in the relatively new band Intrinsic. That just further underscores the impact he had on the local music scene.

"I guess you have to look at it through their eyes," Filardo says. "And it's like, wow, I guess I did make an impression. They're excited about playing and it's re-energizing me."

According to Filardo, the hardest thing about recovery is "getting to know yourself again. There are things I'm learning about myself that have been dormant for years. Now I just like hanging out with the guys. The bands are an excuse... I just want to hang out with my friends and swap stories. Yeah, we get to rehearse and play a show, but now there's no pressure. I find myself enjoying things now. I have a record collection again. I had sold it all."

The man has even relented some, pausing to take credit for all the great music he's been a part of. "It's hard," he says. "I don't want to be that guy. But yeah, I'll take credit for it because it happened."

He's also thankful. Thankful to his wife, Sabrina. Thankful to his father, who Filardo says never gave up on him. And he's thankful to The Veins. "I thanked them for firing me," he says. "Because I never would have gone into rehab without that happening."

Still, Filardo is aware that in some cases, no amount of apologies can make up for the mistakes he's made, the hurt he's caused. He is trying to fix the relationships he can. "Some of them might not ever be patched up," he says. "And that's my own fault. I'm sorry for it all, but I can't change things. Some of them I can try, and some of them I have. I fucked up and I'm sorry. Famous last words, right? But I'm starting over."

Starting over in what he calls the early recovery chapter. "It's all new to me," he says. "I see it as an open door, a blank page."

Garage-Pop Records Presents

Trashcan Records Class Reunion Show feat. Nod, The Thundergods, The Quitters, Muler, Intrinsic w/DJ El Destructo

Saturday, December 31

Bug Jar, 219 Monroe Ave.

9 p.m. $7-$9. 454-2966, bugjar.com