Pretty early on in my life I knew that bum musician was the career choice for me. From the age of four my dad had raised me on Led Zep, Pink Floyd et. al., so I rebelled by listening to jazz & classical for a while. At age 11 he gave me his guitar and a few years later I gave it back, complaining that my fingers hurt and please could I buy a keyboard from our catalogue. (I might have persevered with being a guitarist if the strings on this thing weren't the size of telegraph wires).
Sure enough, my first keyboard arrived shortly after my 16th birthday and I started playing in local bands, not actually knowing any chords but having just learned 'pretty shapes' that kind of worked. However, whilst honing my keyboard skills and gathering a ridiculous array of synths & modules, I secretly yearned to be a singer but just wasn't brave enough to be heard. Until disaster struck. Our singer lost his voice one night and I had to cover for him and afterwards all my friends confirmed that I had found 'my niche'. Bless 'em, it must have sounded terrible, they were being so polite. Still, it gave me the boost I needed.
From there I went to every karaoke bar I could find, trying my voice out on a variety of styles to see what worked. Then armed with my shiny new Yamaha KX88, I set about playing Tori Amos / Kate Bush tracks at nearby open mic nights. Next I got a 6 piece band together in Leicester that I loved to bits and added a Yamaha KX5 to my gear inventory, just for the hell of it. (Hey, why should guitarists get to have all the fun?) We'd tour the local venues playing Herbie Hancock / Stanley Clarke type tracks at speeds as fast as our bleeding fingers and hand / brain co-ordination would allow. Then it all got serious and I quit work at my local music shop to run away with a covers band - nothing quite like it for learning your craft...
Oh, the joyous times we had on the road. Four days of my week were spent practising or catching up with friends, the other three days spent away from home, sitting in the back of a van, playing to rowdy crowds or hanging out at musicians digs with other gigging bands. It's during this time that I learned such valuable musician type skills as 'audience participation', 'showwomanship', 'winging it', 'taking the p*ss' out of fellow band members', 'sleeping until midday', 'committing as many practical jokes as it's possible to fit into a busy day', etc. etc. I would strongly recommend it to anyone wanting to develop their musical skills. In fact, I could write a whole book about these times and may just do so one day...
A couple of years and a whole lot more confidence later, I decided that I was ready for the next big step. I moved to London, where I was signed to Estaloka Records for a while. Garage was just going mainstream and we had a couple of white label releases that got some good airplay around Europe. I also got to meet the boys from Blue & the mighty Sir Elton - fun times! (Annoyingly though, even though my song is available on ebay, I've never received any royalties for it...)
My deal ran out after a few years but I hadn't actually made any significant progress during this time and certainly hadn't made any cash, having to get an office job to survive. A little jaded by the back stabbing and money grabbing nature of the music industry that I encountered in the big city, massively in contrast to the good natured back stabbing that I had encountered on the road over the years, I decided to self manage and release tracks independently and have now set up my own company for doing just that.
So there you have it. I didn't go to the Brit School, I had to learn it all the old fashioned way. And where am I at now? Well, although I've not quite had enough of rebelling yet, I have reintroduced Led Zep & Pink Floyd into my mp3 collection. And I've now got tracks up on worldwide digital distribution through the Red Bean label, including a song in Mandarin (as you do). Hmmm, my next big adventure.... to record a whole album in Mandarin and tour China perhaps...?
