PEOPLE WE MEET

I was born in 1971 in Wollongong. My big brother Ben, is a bass player. He will be playing with me at the free Wollongong Blues Club gig on February 14 at Corrimal RSL. I'm really looking forward to that [see page 30]. We moved to Kohimarama, Auckland, New Zealand, when I was one and we moved back when I was 10. My father Barry was a musician. He played guitar, sax, flute and harmonica. We always had jazz, blues, country, rock'n'roll, Rolling Stones and T-Rex around. I was dancing around with a tennis racquet as a kid. My mum's a rock'n'roll girl - to this day the inside of her pantry door has posters of Tex Perkins, Keith Richards and Clint Eastwood. New Zealand was an idyllic place - gentle, a lot of good times because there was a lot of friends and music around.

Australia was a lot tougher. It was a big wake-up moving to Umina. It was a bit of a culture shock. Umina was a tough town. The first day I went into class they were caning kids. We lasted six months up there, got in the old man's ute and hightailed back to Wollongong. I just started to play music about 12 or 13. I used to pick up a guitar and learn a couple of chords when I was 5 or 6. Dad would teach me songs, things I'd grown up hearing, Creedence and the Stones. By 17 or 18 Ben and I were in a backyard band.

My first band was Black Cadillac - that's where I met the singer for Whose Muddy Shoes, Ewan Sommerville. It was Ewan and I, Alex Leonard on bass and guitarist Ross Waller. I was listening to blues nearly all the time. My father got me into it. You're either completely intrigued by it or you don't get it at all. Blues musos get the beauty, simplicity, the passion. I'd hear everything from Muddy Waters to Howlin' Wolf, to Johnny Winter, then Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Black Cadillac's first gig was the Plant Room Cafe, near Wollongong Hospital about 1990. Wollongong's always been a guitar town - a working class, go out and blow your pay packet town.

Ewan, Richard Steele and I formed Whose Muddy Shoes. We were interested in writing original songs, which a lot of blues bands weren't doing. Those guys were a lot older than me and instantly the band sounded great. Richard and I had the twin guitar attack, which people loved. Ewan and I wrote the songs. Pete Ready was on drums, Justin Gross on bass. When we'd play at the Oxford, it was packed. Ed Dion was our manager and we got signed to Corduruoy Records in Melbourne, where we played gigs with The Breadmakers. That was some of the most exciting early memories for me with gigs. We thought we'd hit the top. We put out a couple of albums - Gasoline did well. I met the drummer who I have been working with for nearly 25 years, George Brugmans.

I left for Europe in 1995, and a young Ray Beadle took my spot in Whose Muddy Shoes. I moved to Paris, where I met my Dutch wife, Peggy. We worked for a fashion label and hit it off. We lived in Holland for a year, where I started writing songs and busking on the canals, and then London for a year. We moved to Sydney for 10 years. I was working in cafes and playing with George and Zoltan Budai in a band called Hydro. We recorded a few albums and I seriously got into recording gear and production. George and I built a studio where I did all my recordings for my current band, The Dust Radio Band. We recorded for Cyndi Boste and Toni Swain.

We moved to Thirroul and our kids go to school in Austinmer. It's closer to how I grew up in NZ, the idyllic coastal retreat. I started playing and producing for other people, such as Jordie Lane, Jeff Lang, Suzannah Espie. I've done some recording, songwriting and touring with Karise Eden from The Voice. I did a three-year touring project, The Stevie Show - The Life and Times of Stevie Wright and The Easybeats. Ben, George and I toured with the Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson tribute last year. This year I'm the musical director for Pearl - The Janis Joplin Story. I also got a call to play with Genevieve Chadwick. I'm hoping to make a solo record. You can't keep the blues down - there's always someone new to discover.