Like many youngsters I enjoyed singing from an early age I would sing at party’s held by my mum and dad enjoying it greatly. In primary school the teachers caught onto this and they soon had me up there singing in front of the class. When I went into the bigger school the same thing happened the teacher would at any given occasion ask me to sing for the class. As I got older I began to realize that all this attention I was getting wasn’t going down to well with my friends.

By the time secondary school arrived I only sang (if asked) at family get together or when on my own. Then aged 17 I met a guitar player from a band who was auditioning for a singer I went along watching and singing along from the sideline to all the people auditioning. When the auditions finished he turned to me and said “ I think we’ve found the singer” I said “which one” he said “you”, this was my first band. We rehearsed for about a month and were playing our first gig the following week. When we got to the venue it was crammed packed with people and when we came out they all rushed forward I was real nervous. The band started I turned to look at the drummer and stayed like that with my back to the audience nearly all through the set with the guitarist shouting “turn around” I was so embarrassed.

Now aged 20 and many bands later I joined a band in Arbroath travelling there to rehearse twice a week. While singing with the band I started to get throat problems once sent to hospital they said “it’s nod gills” they asked “when your singing can you hear yourself over the band” I replied “not all the time” they said “nod gills are caused when you cant hear yourself and you start shouting your vocal chords rub together and wear the skin away and a nodule appears making it hard for you to even talk and an operation is needed to correct this”. Until the operation I had to write everything down as talking was not allowed then after the operation it was the same for 5 weeks NO TALKING. A friend’s mother was a music teacher and after hearing me singing said “ you have a nice tone to your voice why don’t you get singing lessons”.

Once I found a singing teacher it was like night and day even though his teaching methods were catered towards opera and I sang in a rock band the vocal technique and training stood me in good stead working wonders with the band, my singing lessons lasted 6 years. The band lasted about 3 and after many gigs and gaining experience we went our own ways.

I purchased a Teak 4 track recording studio this was a great step enabling me to record the music then add my main vocal line and some harmonies. Playing a bit of keyboards programming drums I could now write and record my own music. One of the recordings I made was picked up by another guitarist he liked what he heard and made contact with me a band was formed we played gigs together then the bass player saw an add in a music magazine asking for bands to send in their music. We sent ours in and out of 2 thousand applicants we were picked.

It was1989 and we won a great opportunity to make a Cd record our song in a professional recording studio (all paid for) then fly to Los Angeles live in a hotel for to weeks to promote the Cd and play gigs there. The experience was something else the Cd was released and promoted by Tower Records in LA. We played at The Roxy a bar on Sunset strip well known for big acts like Prince, Bon Jovi and David Bowie. One time at the Roxy we went on stage first as the warm up act to Spencer Davis, he was a huge name in America his big hit was Keep on running.

I was a fan of the American rock band Journey two of the backing singers who knew this one day at rehearsals said “ Steve Perry from Journey is out in the hallway” thinking they were joking I sat where I was they grabbed an arm each pulling me up and into the hallway and there he was Steve Perry I was speechless. Here was a boy from Dundee standing next to Steve Perry in awe and not wanting to look like a crazy scotts lad I said hi and he smiled and said hi back then turned and walked down the hallway. We were recording and one day Eddie Van Halen came into the room and David Coverdale from (Whitesnake) was recording next door it was very unreal.

On the roof of the hotel was a swimming pool jacuzzi and tennis courts once when playing tennis our guitarist shouted over for us to come over and speak to someone. They were two guys and our guitarist said “who do you think this is” after looking at them for a few seconds it came to me I couldn’t remember their name so I sang their song then said “Go West” ( huge in the 80’s) they both laughed and the singer said “you must be the singer then”. At rehearsals any big band could be rehearsing there one time we had Guns N Roses right next door. When they left for lunch one of the guys at the rehearsal studio took us into their room there was a long table covered with food there was fruit, boxes of MnM’s, Snicker bars, Smarties etc for a laugh we opened the MnM’s and filled them with Smarties and vise versa biting bits in the fruit and placing them back in the bowl he he I always wondered what they thought when they returned. After our two weeks we came home while our manager worked on promotions. There were problems developing between different members in the band and due to the situation we fell out while in LA I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue but I stuck in there hoping all the problems would be ironed out.