Andrew grew up in Antioch, CA where he attended Antioch schools and Los Medanos College. He received his BA degree from California East Bay University. He was very active in the schools' bands and orchestras.

Andy (as the Blue Devils knew him) played mallet instruments in The Blue Devils "A" Drum & Bugle Corps.

After Andrew graduated from Cal State Hayward, Andrew played professionally as a freelance percussionist in the San Francisco bay area, Lake Tahoe, and the Monterey Peninsula. He worked musically with marimba bands in Guatemala. He performed with the Berkeley Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, Vallejo Symphony, Lake Tahoe Festival Orchestra, and many jazz groups including with Save Brubeck Quartet, Merging Traffic, the Charles Unger Experience, and from 1985 to 1990 he toured the US and Europe with the Yiddish Jazz Group, The Klezmorum. Andrew also was an accomplished marimba player and in 1998 made an album (Rhythm Dance), which received many excellent reviews.