Once upon a time ....

I always had a musical bent at school (I played a mean scratchy violin), and took a keen interest in singing rock music after leaving school and receiving encouragement from my good friend and guitarist Steve Herbert. I made my debut with my first band Ateze Plague in front of 300+ audience at Askham Bryan College at the age of 19. Another gig at a private party followed a week later before the band split, John (guitar) and Adrian (bass) had finished college and had to head off home.

Subsequent years saw me in various home recording sessions and several recording studios singing on some of Steve's and my own compositions with Steve performing most of the guitar work and engineering duties.

After a few years' hiatus, I joined my current band Scandal at the age of 28. In our first three years we played almost exclusively songs co written by guitarist Jamie Reynolds and myself, it was best described as 'Melodic Rock' and similar to the Survivor and Bon Jovi styles typical of the late ‘80s / early ‘90s, and saw us play at the York Barbican Centre at our peak. Our musical direction changed just before our second gig at the Barbican when our keyboard player left the band. Without a replacement keyboard player on the horizon, we decided to play Blues/Rock covers to keep the band going. I took up playing rhythm guitar to help fill the gaps and Jamie upped his game to become one of the finest lead guitarists in Yorkshire. It was an inspired decision as we soon forgot about the old stuff and have never looked back, playing now mainly to Pub audiences, averaging around 25 to 30 gigs a year.

We have full PA and an excellent light show (with Paul Hopwood at the controls), so if Blues/Rock is your thing, (Gary Moore, ZZ Top, Jimmy Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jeff Healy etc), and you fancy a night out, I can be found gigging in and around the North and West Yorkshire area, entry is (nearly) always free and I would love to see you and appreciate your support.