Biography

I was brought up on music, mainly Irish folk, although I do recall being woken up every Saturday morning by my dad playing The Who full blast. Mum and dad both play, so my brother and I were constantly being dragged to folk clubs, festivals, jam sessions, and generally anywhere with live music, this was a huge part of our childhood, I can't say I was entirely grateful at the time, but I certainly am now. I started my musical career as many children do, on the recorder, swiftly moving onto the piano, however this did not last as my attention span was not the greatest and my teachers were totally uninspiring. I also had cello lessons at infant school but gave them up as the cello was too awkward and heavy to carry around!

I’d like to say I've been singing my whole life but I haven't, although I do however remember being 5 and my mum insisting I sang ‘John of Dreams’ at a folk club (dad lifted me onto the bar). It wasn't until I was 13 that I really had the desire to sing, and I’d perform to a packed house of teddies in my bedroom, singing along to my Bananarama and Michael Bolton tapes, my taste was very bad back then (sorry Michael).

The turning point came when at 15, by default I got a walk on singing part in the school play. Someone had dropped out at the last minute and they were holding auditions for a replacement. I'd like to say my motivation for auditioning was musical, but it wasn't, I fancied one of the boys in the play and thought it would be a good chance to impress him! I stood on the stage in front of a packed house of the mums and dads and belted out two verses of ‘There's no business like show business’. I surprised a lot of people that night, including my parents 'where did that voice came from?' I still don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that that was the moment that changed my life... unfortunately though, I didn't get the guy!

The Double Bass came even later than the singing, I was 18 I think, dad used to play one and it had always been in the house. I had never really paid it much attention, then one day I grew tall enough to notice it, everyone was out so I thought I would have a mess around...4 hours later, and I had taught myself to play a few basic patterns, I was hooked! Everyone thinks I was mad but despite the fact that it hurts your fingers, is big and cumbersome, everyone looks at you when you stroll into a room with it strapped to your back, you are constantly barraged with 'I bet you can't get that under your chin' or 'that's a big guitar' from some joker who thinks they are being highly original, I would not swap it for anything, I don't know why but I love it!

My song writing side came within the last few years really. I always wanted to write but never believed I could. My dad has written some fantastic songs and has been a real inspiration so after years and years of singing other peoples music, I decided that the only way forward was to write my own stuff. I gave myself a good firm kick up the arse and made myself get on with it. I went out armed with a notebook, pen, digital dictaphone, thesaurus and rhyming dictionary and just wrote about what I saw and what I heard, I wrote about the people around me and I'm really pleased with the result. I find writing songs a real challenge, its frustrating and lonely but when you finish a set of lyrics the satisfaction you get is so immense, you forget all about the struggle and start the process all over again.

I have been in a few bands. I started off playing guitar (badly) and singing Cranberry, Suzanne Vega and Joni Mitchell songs with a school friend at the local open mic session. I then joined a folk band on the local scene, this was fun but I soon realised that it didn't really light my fire. What it did do was introduce me to local musician Dave Thorpe. Dave introduced me to the world of Jazz, Skiffle, Blues and Western Swing and most importantly to the music of Tom Waits and Michelle Shocked. We later formed a duo called Little Chuck Little and played on the local pub scene for about 3 years, I learnt so much about performing and music in this period it was great fun and I met so many interesting people... and some not so interesting! When we made our first CD we hired two local musicians to play on it; Mark Steeds and Kelvin Leitch, little did I know that these two guys would play such an important part in my life.

Dave moved to New Zealand so Kelvin, Mark and I formed Molly Brown, a 'blazz' and 'bling' band (blues, jazz and swing), we still do the odd Molly Brown gig as it is such a laugh, the music we play is so infectious we would miss it if we abandoned it. Two years in and our guitar player left to start a family. We were gutted and thought it was the end, however a friend of the band put us in touch with guitarist Dave Page, and literally within minutes of meeting him it felt right. The four of us work really well together, we have something special and more importantly we are all the best of friends. This is why is made sense to keep on working together on my own material too. And best of all is that our adventure together has only just begun...