MY STORY

At the age of 18 months I started bashing on ice-cream buckets with Mum's wooden spoons. My old man is a drummer so I suppose it was inevitable.

At the age of 6, I received my first drum kit; a Tama
ImperialStar kit, purchased from The Drum Shop in
Piccadilly Square, East Perth. Funnily enough the
kit was sold by my future drum teacher, Vinnie Crea.

Dad gave me lessons at first, but when I started teaching HIM stuff on the kit, it was time for lessons! At the age of 16 I started working at The Drum Shop and worked there for 14 years before moving over to Kosmic where I currently work.​
Fast-forwarding a bit, I played in a couple of original bands in high-school, then stopped playing for about 6 years to concentrate on my day job.

The 'bug' got to me after a while and I was itching to play live and play regularly. I auditioned with a local cover band, landed the audition and my professional drumming career began.
 

I played with this band for 6 months before joining Slim Jim and the Phatts. I had many great experiences with the Phatts band and played some large, memorable shows. Most of the Rock Photos on my site are from Phatts gigs.


It was with the Phatts that I learnt what being a professional musician was all about, but also how important the off-stage time was, hanging out with the boys and trying to crack each other up.

After playing with the Phatts for 6 years, it was time to move on and I ended up joining the amazing Perth live Dance band, The Party Rockers.

 

The band really pushed me as a player and suddenly technology played a huge part in what I did - and I LOVED it! Sound design became an obsession and the size of my kit grew and grew to allow me to cover all of the sounds.

My playing had to change considerably too. It was now all about the notes I didn't play, rather than the flashy fills that were expected with rock'n'roll drumming. Thinking in terms of layers with claps, multiple snare drum sounds, reverse cymbals and crazy swooshy stuff 

happening all over the place. When a 32 bar build-up comes off perfectly and finally you drop the kick drum to shake the club once more, the reaction from the crowd is like nothing I have ever experienced before. Such massive tension and release - it's a great feeling.

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The Party Rockers unfortunately split in March 2013, but half of us carried on doing the Dance thing with a new band called P.U.M.P. We added some old skool RnB tracks like No Diggity, This is How We Do It, Senorita and Baby Got Back. It's been great fun playing around 100bpm and programming a whole bunch of new sounds.

 

In October of 2014 my family and I relocated to Dallas, Texas. I took a year off playing to focus on getting the family settled but started getting that itch again real quick. In 2016 I'll return to the tubs and I can't wait. I'm looking forward to learning the US rep and hopefully not having to play too much Country. ;)

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So, that's it for the playing stuff. On a personal note, here's my beautiful boy, Cooper.