My
music performance life started on the violin, which I learnt for six years.
By that time I was more interested in rock music – I took up the bass and
learnt my first songs on it by playing along with Bachman Turner Overdrive's
album Not Fragile. With a start like that, I couldn't go wrong. Or so
I thought.
In 1979 I borrowed some gear to try out for a band called 'Solid State' and got the gig. It was six weeks of Kiss covers on Friday and Saturday nights at the Oxford Hotel in Levin. We were paid $50 for the weekend, which compared well to the $80 I got for a full week's work at Shell Chemicals! From then on, it was rock'n roll for me...
So in early 1980 I joined speed-punk merchants the 'Ambitious Vegetables' – we became "new wave" in the middle of the year and changed our name to 'The Red' because we never seemed to make it into the black. In 1981–2 I was in 'The Innocent', moving from that band to 'The Mockers' late in 1982. The Mockers version I was in moved to Auckland and broke up after just six months of touring around New Zealand. Disillusioned with my music prospects I stopped playing until we moved to Sydney in late 1985, joining a band called 'Red Theatre' – led by Michel, a socialist from Mauritius.
After 18 months in Australia we took off around Europe and Africa for 6 months, and when we came back to New Zealand in early 1988 I wasn't expecting to play again and planned to sell off my gear. But within a few months I was writing songs with Nigel Beckford for 'The Inhalers', and joined Let's Planet around September that year. Playing in two bands and recording 4 albums over the next 5 years was hard work. Along the way I completed a degree in economics and picked up half of Mediate Recording Studios from Let's Planet guitarist Ben Stewart – the other owner was Inhalers drummer Andrew Downes.
The Inhalers split in 1994 and I retired from Let's Planet at the same time. But I missed playing and accepted an offer to join 'The Caught Jesters' in 1996. The Jesters had been a trio playing medieval and Elizabethan music, but they wanted more bottom end. Electric bass was apparently the answer. And it worked quite well. We got a few gigs as an alternative to Irish bands and recorded a demo of Tudor stadium rock! But the Jesters only lasted one year so I was musically unemployed again when Let's Planet got desperate for a bassist for the 1998 La Gloria tour. Plus ça change...
PS the information that really matters is that I got married in 1985 to Elisabeth, without whom I wouldn't have been able to do most of these things, and we have two beautiful children – Daniel (12) and Hannah (8).