At age 16, he started work as a professional musician before serving in the U.S. Navy, where he also played in a band.
After opening a store, Drum City, on Santa Monica Boulevard in 1950, he realized after a few years that the growth of rock and roll meant that there were insufficient supplies of calfskin, the traditional material for drumheads, to meet the demands.
[1][2] After founding the company Remo Inc., he started marketing the new synthetic drumheads in 1957, with endorsements from leading drummers such as Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa.
The new drumheads, marketed as Remo Weather King, eventually became a huge commercial success.
Belli later said that the invention "changed everything in the whole musical instruments category; it was no longer woodwinds and brass winds and strings.