Mallacoota
Bidawal Country
The wilderness coast.
I grew up here. In a wild and simple time. I started to play the guitar pretty young as every Saturday morning I'd come out of my bedroom (clad in a red dressing gown) to find a group of musicians in the front of the house. Saturday morning guitar lessons brought quite a few people in - varying ages and often ending in a jam session.
A piano arrived at some point and I was convinced enough that it was going to be pretty easy to learn. My mother played, my grandmother played and there was a huge pile of sheet music that arrived from the farm that belonged to my grandfather.
Grandma playing Rachmaninoff C#Minor Prelude. I'm astounded. She was the one that told me it was easy. I absolutely fell for it.
Melbourne
A different kind of wild. I've been here a long time. Played in more bands than I can remember but although I have an attachment to this city, it's never got under my skin the way Mallacoota forever is.
It took some time to realise that writing for the piano isn't reserved for dead old men.
I reserved 20 years for the raising of children while squeezing in gigs and the occasional pop, rock, punk recording with various musicians.
There was a lull.
Change came and I found I had time alone. I actually adapt well to change.
I wrote Wrecks. Inspired by the beautiful place where I grew up. Partly in mourning for her after the fires.
I wrote Flinton. Inspired by the places left behind. The farmhouse. Family.
The idea of memory in walls, memory in the earth.
Both Wrecks and Flinton are each a journey through spaces. Not events, but the imprint of people on those abandoned spaces, and equally the imprint of places on the people that enter there.
Melody came from the flow of the hallways, some dreams of floating through the ocean and in and out of portholes and barnacle encrusted cabins.
Melody came from observing the cracks in the walls and sudden impositions of life around corners or from the corner of an eye.
Melody came from the feeling of sand underfoot and rhythmic tides. The flash of the lighthouse. The smell of the musty cow paddock.
Now
I'm recording more. The beautiful thing about 'classical' music is that there is not a definitive version.
The concept of a cover band doesn't exist.
the music exists for anyone that wants to interpret it, because everytime you do, you are creating art.
It's August 2026. I expect that by the end of September there will have been a show at the wonderful Russian House and a new release in hand.
LIVE
RUSSIAN HOUSE
ANNOUNCED SOON