A Musical Biography of Math (1988 to 1995)

Initally, I had little interest for making music in my formative years but a number of artists created an epiphany for listening: The Beatles, Madness and Kate Bush all featured in my teenage years.

The need to create music came as I went through a period of a (now slightly embarrassing) obsession with three bands in the late eighties: Queen, Marillion and Iron Maiden. Yes - I initially dosed
myself with high concentrations of mainstream rock.

I find it amusing now considering my use of PC sequencers that
my initial foray into songwriting was with a humble Commodore 128. In October 1988, I began programming sounds which
produced my first musical piece The Sixth Seal. It contained one instrument (okay - a string of beeps really). At this point, I
couldn't play an instrument and I didn't know a thing about music but here I was stringing notes together until it produced something I liked. It was naive but the sense of creativity overwhelmed me. From this, I made a quantum leap within twenty-four hours. I added bass lines; I created harmonies; I produced chords - all unwittingly.

By the end of October I had produced ten 'songs' and started to fathom musical tricks that worked
and learned from those that didn't. Three months later, I had written further songs with melodies, verse/chorus structures and pretentious instrumental strands that - well - I enjoyed at the time.

Christmas arrived and so did a Yamaha keyboard. About this time my cousins were also waking to the possibilities of music. By the summer of 1989 the three of us convened in my bedroom to produce the worst version of Queen's I Want to Break Free I've ever heard. But we were performing music - that feeling of wonder overwhelmed and from that moment the three of us knew that we would never leave music behind.

Thus we took to the stage of a local hall in the closing months of 1989 and improvised and the forerunner of Prime was born which is the subject of another biography page...

By 1991 I had mastered the bass guitar to a level that I was content with. I had dabbled also with the 'standard' guitar and the keyboard and taught myself the theory behind it all. Arranging and scoring songs onto sheet music became a natural next step and meant I could form soundscapes and chords that I could never have dreamt of playing live.

By 1991 I was heavily influenced by prog rock (i.e. Genesis and King Crimson) and the idea of a concept album formed. I didn't have the equipment or skills to record it so I relied on scoring all the songs onto sheet music. The story was part-inspired by an idea I had been discussing with my good friend, Keith Randall. It eventually turned into an 18 track ensemble which I wrote on-and-off for 9 years until 1999 and was called We Cirri. Although We Cirri has yet to be recorded, four songs made it onto my first album Soliloquy. I borrowed instruments and a mixer and recorded it over one intensive week in July 1992. At last I had seven songs in a format that other people could listen to and - hopefully - enjoy.

In my quest to avoid full-time work I enrolled at Bournemouth University in the late summer of 1992 to study archaeology. There, I met John Copestake who became a good friend and musical mentor. We partook in many a jam session together but wrote only four songs in fifteen years (and counting)!

By the time I graduated in July 1995, I recorded a second album, Fugue. Again, this contained a number of new We Cirri tracks but showed a move toward more basic songs as I laced my CD collection with contemporary bands such as Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals, and Sleeper. Although less arranged than its predecessor, Fugue was doubtlessly more accomplished.

Some of the tracks on Fugue were crying out to be played live and, with Prime, I had the chance. I made my debut appearance at The Bellevue, Lee-on-the-Solent in August 1995. Finally, I had an audience...

This biography continues under Math (Part II).