I come from a pretty musical family, so inevitably listened to and played music from an early age. I took weekly piano lessons from age 6, but by my teens I found I didn't really enjoy the classical music approach, or the formality of lessons, exams, and sight reading - I used to pretend to be reading the music, but really would learn it, note-for-note, by ear! I was 9 when my older brother got a drum kit, and I just had to have a go - I've been hooked ever since!

 

I started to mess around on the guitar aged 13, but it was drums that I came to play in a garage band with friends a couple of years later. I found that I just loved playing beats, writing original music, and just simply being in a band. I'd spend hours playing along to records and discovering ways to sound like my favourite drummers, and knew then that all I wanted to do was play drums professionally. It was around this time that I started singing too, and soon got hooked on harmonising with the singer while drumming.

 

 

I played with various original bands, as well as gigging and recording sessions for singer songwriters throughout my teens and years at uni, in a variety of styles including indy rock, funk, reggae and hip-hop. I spent nearly 3 years after graduating writing material with an original band called Beatcivilian, who were pretty close to signing to Island Records when musical differences led to the band splitting up. We never recorded the album but there's still some bits and pieces on the web: http://www.myspace.com/beatcivilian. As it's my passion, I still make my own music today, and since 2005 have turned my hand to producing for the first time, working on an album with an upcoming hip-hop mc called Linez, which is now nearing completion. Over time I've developed a distinctive tight, funky sound, and the ability to create grooves that imitate drum patterns which are traditionally programmed, like hip-hop, breakbeat and drum 'n' bass. This has led to me landing a place in new live drum 'n' bass act 'Fathabit' www.myspace.com/fathabit. I'm doing a video with them in the coming months, and there's a load of nightclub gigs planned nationwide for 2008. I'll be uploading some videos and sound clips of this soon. 

 

                                                                  

                            

                                                

 

I first started to play in covers bands about 6 years ago, finding that I enjoyed 'getting into the head' of each drummer, and buliding experience in all sorts of musical genres. I have now worked with a variety pro covers/function bands, including 'Drunken Munky', 'The Pot Bellied Pigs', 'The Alan Smith Swing Band' and 'The Shuffle Kings', as well as working with a band which I manage called 'The Double Measures', playing funk, soul & motown http://myspace.com/thedoublemeasures. In the past I've also played drums in a couple of amateur musicals, and in January I'm playing in my first professional production called 'Shirt & Tie' by Stuart Jones.