Who Am I?
Songwriter.
Singer.
Guitarist.
Modern music that I like:
Pink Floyd, David Bowie, ELO, Queen, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Gustavo Cerati, ACDC, Killing Joke, Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Duran Duran, Japan, Toto, Peter Gabriel, 10CC, Nick Cave
I also love orchestral and chamber music:
Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Benjamin Britten, Wolfgang Mozart
As far as virtuoso playing, I listen to and admire:
Alan Holdsworth, Freddie Mercury, Luciano Pavrotti, L. Subramaniam, John Mclaughin, Vinnie Colaiuta, Stanley Clarke, Stevie Ray Vaughan
Early Days
It all began a long time a go – I was born when I was very young - and from that moment on, I was always surrounded by music and musical instruments. My uncle Dave always had music going - lots of experimental stuff like Zappa, White Noise and Children Of Forever. Dad would have the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen playing, Mum liked her Elvis, my uncle Ian always playing ACDC and Kiss.
I had no choice. Music it would be.
The Nightmare Begins
I still remember teaching my self how to play the melody for “The Entertainer” on the piano when I was maybe three or four years old - my family would often watch the snooker show “Pot Black”, and that was the intro music. Now one would think that having guitars and pianos in hand from birth would mean attaining virtuosity very quickly – ha! No way! I was a terrible musician when I was young! The truth is my musicianship is a product of the combination of being smart and from decades of practice.
The Guitar
(My One True Love)
It may surprise many of you, but I totally struggle with the guitar to this very day. I really need to put in at least 90 mins a day to keep in shape, and I rarely do, given all the other hats I wear. Even back then, I was playing cello, double bass, electric bass, guitar, bugle. I tried my hand at violin, cornet, drums and piano. I won awards and was generally considered to be of a musical bent.
As I said, I initially struggled with music. Not only could I not concentrate on one instrument, but I also tended to juggle it with other interests – science, flying, sport – all of which my poor-old parents would have totally preferred me to follow. But, to their disdain, I just had to choose music and art, didn’t I? Hey, I was born in Melbourne, and this was Melbourne in the 80s, a major centre of music, where playing music was a valid job choice.
Teenage years
Early in my teens I was mostly into British pop and a lot of synthesizer music. I was into Duran Duran, Adam and the Ants, Visage, Ultravox, Spandau Ballet. As with many people, from there I transitioned into the Melbourne alternative scene where I started doing a lot of jamming, and then I ended up in the punk scene and my first project, called Internal Hemmorage (with old-friend Mark Paltridge). Actually we had two bass players, with me on “lead bass” and Mark on “bass bass”. We recorded, but the last remaining tape died on the dashboard of my car decades ago. I think there may be one remaining track on an old Reactor Records release.
Go Speed Racer!
From punk I became interested in heavy metal, especially the speed-metal stuff like: Depression, Destruction, Kreator and Celtic Frost. I began focusing on guitar, and tried to put together a rap/metal band (the idea was totally new at the time), but we were too busy being stoners to get anything done.
Study time
At 19, I decided to spend a year just studying music. This was the year that I discovered Alan Holdsworth, the guitarist who inspired me more than any other. After being totally blown away by his work on The Things You See, Metal Fatigue, Sand and Atavachron, I embarked on a programme of guitar, ear-training, music theory and composition. I studied jazz, rock, and western and eastern classical music. Much to my girlfriend’s bemusement and eventual regret, I decided to become the fastest guitar-slinger in the west, consuming endless hours of Alan, Malmsteen, Frank Gambale, Van Halen and Paul Gilbert. I would spend around 12 hours a day or more doing this stuff. However, as I mentioned, I always struggled with the guitar and although I got to a point where my playing was definitely at a national level, it was never quite good enough to be recognised internationally, mostly due to my inability to concentrate. Was I going to be a guitar-player? A songwriter? A composer? A musician or a rock-star? Leader or second-fiddle? A serious person or a party-animal?
Panic In The Zoo
At the end of that year, I joined a band called Panic In The Zoo, with Craig Mcneill (drums), Arj Bartholomuesz (keys) and Tristan Wallace (bass). Those boys would be my main musical collaborators for the next 8 years. On vocals was Neil, we did a video and recorded some demos, and Neil had a lot of industry contacts, all of whom were telling us what to do and we should have damn-well listened, but to be honest we were “musicians” and were too egotistical; instead of tempereing that aspect and focusing on the songwriting, we decided we were going to be Yes or Rush or something of that nature. Neil wanted fame an fortune. It wasn’t going to work out. It didn’t and we dumped Neil.
Five To Five
After trying various other vocalists, we eventually settled on Steve Woodford, renamed the band to Five To Five and played a couple of hundred shows. The musicianship was incredible and over the years I learned a lot from playing with those guys. We were once described in the press as a “happy mix of Van Halen and Led Zeppelin”, which I don’t think was a bad comparison, though woefully incomplete - I think with some weird kind of 80s pop influence as well, such as Tears For Fears and Toto.
Big Hit List
Along the way, we took most of Five To Five, replaced Tristan with Ramzi Shibani and started up the band Big Hit List, a cover band that was going places - we basically got to the “beer barn” circuit (crowds of a 1000-2000) within a few short weeks of debuting. We also had another guitarist, but he beat someone up during rehearsal, so we umm, “let him go”. The band was doing really well. I was making money, getting women, what could possibly go wrong?
Dun-dun-dun-dunnn...