Robert "El Jefe" Trop comes from a family with music genes. His father played saxophone, and later piano. His mother played piano and guitar. His grandfather was a guitarist with published original music who played the New York City club circuit in the 1940s. Robert used to listen to his mother’s Elvis albums, and saw Elvis perform live in 1975 in New York. Taking piano lessons starting in the 4th grade, this continued for several years, providing an understanding of musical theory. But certain events caused Robert to switch to guitar. One was seeing Kiss perform on television on the “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” television show. Another was when the babysitter for Robert and his brothers brought over two albums, namely, the fourth Led Zeppelin album and Edgar Winter’s album, "They Only Come Out At Night". Four tracks from those albums made him fall in love with guitar and rock ‘n’ roll: “Black Dog,” “Rock & Roll,” “Free Ride,” and “Frankenstein.” He then asked his mother for a guitar, and obtained a Les Paul copy. He has been playing ever since. While he has many influences in his style of rock guitar playing, the five that influenced him the most are: Jimmy Page, Ace Frehley, Edward Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, and George Lynch. After a re-location to Arizona some years ago, he joined a cover band. But after some time, Robert and Steve Traikovich began synching their musical ideas and lyrics. As a result, an original band was born, and it was named Beach Viper.