At 29, I am the youngest member of the band, but what is age to a group of hardcore proggers!
I
have been involved and around music from a very young age with my Dad
being a producer for artists such as Gary Numan and Suzi Quattro and
the legendary Chas and Dave!
My mum however was a HUGE Genesis
fan, as well as such luminaries as the Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Dire
Straights, Mike Oldfield and Fleetwood Mac! Therefore 'brain washing'
me into real music early on!!
The memories of dancing round my lounge as a kid to Invisble Touch and Money for Nothing still linger too.....
When I was around 7 I started jamming on my friend's drum kit and was hooked.
However,
school was less interested in my pleas to learn drums or guitar and
instead hooked me up with a lovely Saxophone, which still after 3 years
of lessons, is a complete mystery to me!
Upon moving to secondary
school, I met and befriended a young musician by the name of Ben Jones
(now with The Lovedays) and our mutual love of well written music
resulted in us forming a band called Revolver. Our sound, being
influnced by Ben's love of The Beach Boys, Neil Young and The Beatles
and my influnces too, had a very retro 'pop' sound which became very
popular amongst our friends.
At the same time I started drumming for the KMS Jazz Band which performed around local schools, but hey, a gig is a gig.
At
17 Revolver entered the studio and recorded a single called (Won't
You?) Listen To Me, co-written by Ben and myself, with a B-side called
Dry Your Eyes. Both songs featured respected session musician Brian
Heywood on Bass and were produced by Brian and Ross Hemsworth at The
Point in Dunstable.
The single resulted in being offered a
publishing deal with Nomad Rush Productions later that year. However,
less that a year later, Revolver split up
For a short period, I
carried on playing with members of Revolver's live band Dave Tipler
(guitar) and Malcolm McLeod (Keys) and adding bass player Noz, as The
Afterglow, but called it a day after about 6 months.
It was
then about 5 years until I returned to music, joining Out of
Nowhere, a Kent based covers band covering mainly soft rock and pop
songs. In the 2 years of being with the band, we only performed 1 live
gig, partly due to the constantly changing lineup, partly due to one
band members refusal to accept bookings.
The final lineup went
their separate ways after one heated rehearsal in which half of the
band wanted to become a country band, the others didn't.
The remaining members John, Dee, Terry an Colin went on to become Highway 249, playing country music.
Ruth
went on to front rockers Dead Reckonin', Cod became lead guitarist for
metal outfit Wires Faulty, and myself and Malc (Keys) were again in
limbo.
In 2008 I moved back to Portsmouth, and a few months
later joined Polarity, a classic rock band based near Southampton.
However the dreaded lineup changes were drawing near and after playing
the See More Festival, the complete guitar section decided to leave.
Never one to give up easiy, replacements were recruited and the band
carried on.
After a sucessful year of gigs, the guitarists decided to leave following their graduation from Uni.
Polarity, nearly folded, but decided to give it a shot and carry on again, and yet again, replacements were recruited.
During
the summer or 2010, I was appraoched by Dan to join Sarus, an offer
that I couldn't say no to, and decided to run this as a side project.
However, come September, due to musical differences, I left Polarity......
Now I can't wait to see what the future holds for Sarus!
.
As
well as Sarus, I am also concentrating on a solo project featuring
collaborations with other artists and an un-yet named Acoustic Project
with Sarus Keys legend Dan Parratt