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Scroll down the page as I share some highlights throughout my musical Journey

Early family pic,My parents were
Salvation army Ministers,growing up in the church sparked a passion for music, learning the Tenor Horn, Piano and singing in the choir, I later picked up and taught myself the guitar.Plus a pic of me and my sister enjoying some music using Nanas headphones

First band - ABC (Aidan ,Brent,Craig) we met at The Palmerston North Salvation army, aged 12
We rapped mostly about the girls at church and made up raps from church songs.Early musical influences were mostly hip hop - LL Cool J, Run DMC plus a bit of NKOTB.

Sample lyrics : "ABC is the place to be / rapping down in harmony/ so come along and get on down / cause ABC is back in town / AR BH CM 3!"

Housebeat was a bunch of friends from The Salvation Army Wellington city.We did a mixture of covers, originals and taking secular songs and changing some lyrics to 
make it more God focused.Check out the 
video of us winning the teen category at
CTC93 at the Wellington Michael Fowler 
center and our last gig at Parachute 1994 
before I moved to Auckland.

Found an old 
cassette tape
from a house beat gig, here's a snippet of me and Daz busting out an instrumental break on the tenor horn and trumpet

My first 4 track recorder

Attended the Excel school of performing 
arts 1995-96 majoring in Vocals, touring New Zealand in the second year performing in schools, concerts and churches.Our theme was "Time" and our stage was a large clock on an angle that needed to be assembled at every Saturday concert.
I returned to Excel to be a tutor in midi / sequencing using a classroom full of the original apple mac computers, then a few years later taught as a vocal tutor.One of 
my students passed out during a breathing 
session!
 

Teamed up with my best friend and long time music partner in crime Aidan to write
new songs together.We got the chance 
to fly to Brisbane, Australia to record a Demo album with Dale Bray with CMC
Australasia with the hopes of heading to
Nashville and try to break into the USA
Christian music scene.That dream never
eventuated.Some of band names we were
trying were - The New Zealand Boys - Cousin crash - Aslan,settling on Partisan.
 

My early weapons 
of choice were the 
Ensoniq TS-10 Synth
and the
Akai S2000 sampler.
I took the TS-10
to Australia for
our week of recording.
I programmed 
all the music on it 
apart from he guitars.Aidan used to joke that I was married to my keyboard :-)


 

Our great friend Tim Melsop joined the band on bass and vocals.
We recorded a 3 song EP at York street studios in Auckland. Recorded through a vintage 1974 EMI Neve mixing desk onto 2inch 24 track tape. We did a number of gigs around the North Island and played at
Parachute 1999.


 

A minute or so snippet
from each
track.Some
of the 
Influences 
back then from the Christian
music 
scene were
DCtalk
Newsboys
Jars of clay

 

REAL

ALIVE

RISK

EVERGREEN LADY

WINDING ROAD

THE WAY

SOMETHING TO SAY

GRACE

FREE

MON AMI

REAL

LIKE ANGELS DO

MON AMI

We used the Fostex FD4, a 4 track
hard disk multitracker for our backing tracks. No in ear monitoring except 
for Aidan having the loud (and no doubt annoying) click in his ear keeping us all in time.


 

Still got Nanas headphones
as you see on the couch.


 

JUMPHOUSE

Embracing our love of hip hop, Me and Aidan morphed into SUMIX, basically the two young fellas from the ABC days,just a bit older now. Rapping, singing and having fun, We wrote some new material and sent our 4 song demo off to the record labels.


 

Malcolm Black from Sony Music heard our demo, came around for a cup of tea and offered us a deal for a single to start with.
We got NZ on Air grants to record a song and make a music video.

Discussions were had about which song to go for for our first single, More than a feeling was thought to be too tricky and expensive 
due to getting the samples cleared. 
Old school was a good choice for the first 
single but we ended up writing Jumphouse and went with that.
​
We recorded vocals and live drums with 
Malcolm Welsford at his recording studio 
near Karekare beach. We got my good friend
Jani from my Excel days to come and add some female BV's.

We made the music video with Joe Lonie
(from Supergroove) He had the concept of us
rapping and singing as we slid down the 
hydroslide at The Waiwera Hot Pools, attaching a camera to a mat that followed us down as we performed. Thanks to our legendary friend Nolan Hill for helping us out that day.








 

AIN'T NEVER GONNA

OLD SCHOOL

MORE THAN A FEELING

SOMEBODY ELSE
 

Creative tools were added to  my Ensoniq TS10 an Akai sampler.
I got some Technics 
1200 turntables, an
Ensoniq DP4 effects 
processor.Recorded into a Roland VS-890
digital workstation.
I bought alot of breakbeats vinyl
records, using mostly breaks for our beats and sampled snippets of songs from the likes of Boston and Whitesnake.


 

I ventured out on my own,wrote and recorded Funky little hip hop angel using one of the earlier versions of
Pro tools. Recording the vocals in a cupboard with sleeping bags to try and deaden out any reverb. 

The song was inspired by the time I asked Paloma Vivanco-Coutts out back in the day when she worked in one of the 
shops at the Saint Lukes Mall in Auckland.
I wrote my phone number on the back of the stores business card and gave it to her.
 
I applied for and got a NZ on Air grant to record the 
single and also a video grant to make a music video.
I had the song mixed at Parachute studios with 
Nick Manders and teamed up again with Joe Lonie to 
make the music video.The concept was based on the movie 
Saturday night fever.Instead of a paint can / shop, I was 
carrying a bunny rabbit to the pet shop where I was working.I wore a Snorricam to achieve the first person effect as I was walking.

Due to technical difficulties on the original day for shooting, we had to postpone.
Probably a blessing in disguise, as the original concept had the video ending in way that could've offended a lot of people in regards to what happened at the end to Lily,the rabbit! who incidentally yawned on camera, which was impressive!Also thanks to my lovely friend Jo for agreeing to be part of the video.


 

FUNKY LITTLE HIP HOP ANGEL
 

I traveled to Los Angeles and stayed for 3 months to check out the music scene,attend a music conference,do a number of open mic nights and had some meetings with record executives.I really enjoyed linking in the Oasis church church during my stay,above is a picture of me and some of the church crew.I wrote the song "Overflow" during my time there for my debut album.


 

I recorded my Debut Album - Surrender at home still utilizing
breaks taken off Vinyl,I mixed on a pair of monitors I bought in the USA which I squeezed one of them into my carry on bag,One of the flight attendants was not impressed when  storing it in the overhead locker for me.
My faithful Ensoniq TS-10 had died a natural death, the final
straw was when one of the keys would get stuck and the note would ring on, it happened during a reflective worship song
when I was playing Keys at C3 Auckland church, I got an ungodly look from the Sound person! The Omnisphere virtual synth from Spectrasonics was now doing the heavy lifting 
for a lot of my sounds. 


I traveled up to Auckland from Wellington for a week to have the album mixed at studio 203 by Andrew Buckton and mastered by Leon Zervos at Sterling sound , NY.


 

RADIO RHEMA INTERVIEW PART 1
 

RADIO RHEMA INTERVIEW PART 2
 

RADIO RHEMA INTERVIEW PART 3
 

Heidi had the patience to
put up with me and Aidan as a flat mates during the
Sumix days.
I made a little music video to go along with 
my song Overflow which I had the honour of singing at her and Anands Wedding.

 

I played and sang along side Tim from our Partisan days forming a covers band called Ember with some other lovely and talented friends.
One of our gigs was at the  launch of my beautiful sisters book "Life Wide Open"about her life's journey click on the book cover to find out more. 
 

I joined up with Audiofreaks production company based in the UK for a number of years, while continuing to write my own 
material towards my second album Reignite.
This time I did the whole process up until the mastering stage which was taken care of by Blake La Grange of Mercury Mastering.

 

I had the privilege of writing
"Love changes lives"for the 2017 Salvation Army self denial appeal, also heading over to Australia to shoot a music video for the

song with a great team from the creative 

ministries department in Sydney.

I forgot my guitar strap! so as you can see in the picture I put double sided tape on the back of my acoustic guitar to stick it against my body to help hold it in place as I tried to play and sing, not ideal, but it was a fun, fulfilling experience.

 

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