I grew up on a council estate in the North East of Margaret Thatcher's England. Think "Billy Elliot" for backdrop. I started playing guitar at seven years old, but lessons were strictly classical, and I wanted to sound like Jimmy Page. I impressed grown-ups for about a year, then my guitar teacher died in a car accident and the guitar got put away.
Teenaged, and with a head full of Hendrix and Thin Lizzy, I started playing again and I knew I'd found my thing. I gave up on school and started playing in bands all over the North East, then it was time to go to London. I packed my ancient Ford Cortina and headed down the A1.
I joined a Blues Brothers tribute band and played all over Europe, including with the actual Blues Brothers Band at what was then Hammersmith Odeon. Soon I got offered a tour of Europe and Australia with Sam Brown, and I went on to play all over the world with artists like Seal, Vanessa Mae, The Rembrandts and my childhood hero, Thin Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham, among many others. The life of a musician is a fluid one - I could be playing an empty Irish pub in Kilburn one week and a 50,000 capacity festival in Switzerland the next. All fine by me. I absorbed more styles of music than I ever imagined, and I couldn't wait to try out in the studio whatever I'd just learned on the road. An unremitting gear nerd, I also had a long string of recording studios, from a Tascam portastudio in my room to custom-design ProTools HDX spaceships.
By the time I got to LA I had enough chops that I was a pretty easy hire for a busy commercial house, which is where the previous page kicks in.