about me

I'm 34 years old - married to Hayley and we have two boys, Aidan and baby Joel.

I grew up listening to music, mostly courtesy of my Dad putting music on a Ferguson Studio 6 HiFi - but it was soon apparent that it was natural for me to start creating music. I did the school route of learning the recorder and having a bash on the piano at any opportunity it had been left unlocked! When I was eleven years old my parents bought me a CASIO MT-100 mini keyboard and so it began...

During my school years at Torquay Boys Grammar, I was developed my skills further using the music departments Yamaha V50 workstation. Back then (late eighties) - this was cutting edge for a school! An FM synth, with 8 track MIDI sequencer and drum machine. Mr Sears, our music teacher, really got into this new music technology stuff and encouraged us all to do use the technology to it's full (not all music teachers would be quite so forward thinking). I got a B-grade for GCSE Music. Oh yes - and during this period I performed for the first time on stage with a school pal at a school music concert. What a buzz. We were the only electronic performers that night - but it went down well.

I had to stay on at school (looking back I wish I hadn't done so and instead just packed my bags and headed for the big smoke to get into the music industry the old fashioned way, tea boy, tape op, trainee engineer etc...) and attempted A-Level music. This meant going across to the girls school (no bad thing) but back to traditional music. I couldn't play piano properly, I wasn't graded at all, and yet the other four in my class were graded musicians. I lasted a term! I went back to Mr Sears and he sorted me out doing C&G Electronic keyboard Grades - which I attained Grade 3 and 5.

Outside of school, I helped out with a musical/comedy duo Roy and Dean West (father and son)who performed at local holiday caravan resorts, with me playing keyboards on stage (well... miming mostly to backing tapes) on a Friday night, and being their sound engineer/tape op on Saturday and Sunday nights during the summer season. With Roy and Dean I also experienced my first venture into a professional recording studio, The Presshouse Studio in Colyton, Devon, and provide "keys" for their tape which they sold at their gigs.

Although I had started writing lyrics with music throughout my GCSE years, it was during my last year at school, that the songs were becoming more developed and uplifting. My favourite song to this day was co-written with a long time friend, Paul Sherwood, in May 1993. Prior to going our separate ways we made a four track e.p under the band name of "Fused", recording Move You, Winter Sun, Consequence and No one ever listens on an 8-track analogue reel-to-reel and console owned and engineered by Roy.

In Sept 1993 I went off to college in Farnborough, Hampshire to study Media Production. I made some great friends there and just so happened that one particular college chum was also into electronic music production. Kevin Donaldson worked on a couple of songs with me, a reworked Move You, and new songs Reach out and touch and Breathe - though he initially made me sing them (embarrassing experience) it gave me a further insight into multitrack recording and production using samplers and drum loops.

In 1995 I returned to my home town and started the mundane 9-5 treadmill working in "I.T". The upshot is I got paid for it. Money buys equipment and this is what I did. Having a basic setup of a multi-timbral synth and a hardware sequencer I started writing more songs. Lifes experiences brought about unexplored topics to write about - but words don't flow easily all the time.

In 1999 I met Hayley and within the first few weeks of dating , I wrote her a song - Look my way - which, as it turned out, we would later use as our first dance at our wedding in 2003. I auditioned several singers and chose a guy called Mike Camp (who'd worked in bands up country) because he brought an interesting perspective to the song -  "synthpop/country" anyone?

In 2005 we relocated to Nottinghamshire with our son Aidan. On the music front - I replied to a singer available advert on the internet and met Lena . We recorded a cover version of a Kate Bush classic... Wuthering Heights. We started work on her own song called Monolith, but as of mid-December, production had ceased due to her other committments as she had joined a new band.

I have also found a local studio - SilverStudios  owned by singer/songwriter and music producer Jorden Milnes - who is able to put a voice to my lyrics after all this time. Observing a professional re-creating one of my songs still amazes me. I am also pleased to report that Jordan has secured a publishing deal with a major international music publishing company and has set up his own production company with plenty of projects in the pipeline. I also had the priveledge of working on some remix work for Jordan earlier this year, which although they didn't get used, was great fun for me and I think the end result was better than I expected.

Having struggled to find people able to sing - it came to my attention that a close relative, Claire, can sing. I heard a CD of her vocal and was amazed. Unfortunately for me, Claire lives in the Greater London area so we can only work remotely. Sunny Day is available to hear with Claire vocals and I'm looking forward any other material that Claire has the time to have a go at from time to time.

Other ventures are songwriting collaboration projects, the first of which was with Chris Eason , whom I got into contact with via the International Songwriters Association , and who lives in Nottingham. We have written a song called "15 minutes" written in a R&B style for female artists. Again Claire provided a vocal for the version that I produced, while Chris is working on an other version with other session singers.

Through my Vox.com website profile I have collaborated with other songwriters, but after a series of unsuccessful online collaborations i have decided not to enter into this sort of work again. So it's not for want of trying to work with others but I seem to put in a great deal of effort for it all to go pear shaped. I will be concentrating on local collaborations with local songwriters in the Notts/Derbys area so I can work side by side with someone for real!

October was a very sad time for me and my family - and that's putting it mildly. My father died after suffering a horrendous year battling bowel cancer, until he no longer had the physical, mental and emotional strength to fight on. I last saw him at the end of August, typically resolute and not letting on the full extent of his suffering. He was able to meet for the first time our second son, Joel and of course managed to muster enough energy to spend play time with our first son Aidan. As is often the case there was so much more that I should have said to my Dad, so much more I could have learned and so much more I could have shared with him.  One day I'll write a song about him especially for my mum - and I hope I carry on with my journey to write good songs as I feel I always wanted to prove myself to my Dad more than anyone else.

So it's about time I did something with songs that I have written and continue to write. It can only go one of two ways.