It started after I answered an ad in the back of saturday's Age looking for a chicago blues type bass player over 30. A bloke with a strange accent rang me while I was high up an extension ladder with a hammer drill at the children's hospital and began talking to me while I was hanging off the ladder. That was about 12 years ago. I remember him saying that SRV didn't play the blues and since that was about all I knew, I thought, 'I dont think so!'. At the audition in a pokey office in Little Bourke st, I lied about my age, farted on the band in the lift and bluffed my way through. I got the gig. 2 years later they found out I was 25.
Between now and then, I have played with great and not so great muso's. Played to full bars and empty pubs and can count on one hand the amount of practises and gigs I couldn't make. And still loving it.
How did I get here? I've played on the back of trucks, garages, parties, bikie gigs where they shoot jap cars, drove a HQ with no back seat so as to fit the rig in,got driven off the road in a HZ van by a punter after a function, hid in the kitchen of the Guiding Star as an unhappy punter shot out the windows in the bar, practised at bunkles in a stinking hot room while his boy slept in the next room, drove up to Sunbury for years to pratice in a tin shed, lifted gear into Dane loading bay, carried a hammond B3 up 4 flights of stairs at The Club in Collingwood, played in an Angels cover band at The Lady Bay and some place in Gippsland where there was about 2000 in the pub, played stars and dingoes songs in the public bar of the cross keys during a summer, new years eve at the Kalkalo with the school band,about every bar and pub in Williamstown, never done a recording in a studio that felt right,played at boot scooting classes in sunshine on the double bass, gear stinking of beer,clothes stinking of smoke, smell of bob hope, frontline, J and m, dane , soundvault, brendans house, tommys house, prows house, church hall, some place in richmond, jam hut, only ever broken one string, same bass and amp for 15 years, shit, been playing for 23, howz my ears, alot of pubs I've played at are gone, fav bass player ; changes, same with guitarists, best gig I ever saw was Oils at the beach in Cobram with the state forest as a backdrop, met John Rodgers, a great pedal steel player and even better bloke, McSwank you owe me money bastard, played with Silky Monze, the most laughs in a band, Slack Mammoth, the best gigs, played at bars and clubs I'd never heard of with the hock, Marky mark was the tightest drummer I'd ever rythmn sectioned with, Biddo and Bunkle are my best memories,got rained on, lost power, stitched up, drank free beer, cash in hand, drivin home with one eye open, good gigs no people, bad gigs lots of people, frustrated, embarrased, inspired, tired, always supported by the lovely amanda, I love my 2 boys, different music influences growing up and always with Homez at the gigs after his hibernation, matt l is the best singer I've played with. Tommy, Chris and Les inspire me because of there love of music. I love it! John.