Influences were found at an early age, as Charles would have his mother take him to movies and concerts. The films of Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" and Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" became the foundation of his study of cinema and his fascination with the special effects that added to the impact of the stories being told on the screen. An age 10 excursion with his mother to a performance of Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare concert solidified his penchant for extreme showmanship.