"I started playing guitar when I was 9 years old. My uncle taught me 3 chords - G C and D. I was a huge Beatles fan. So in my teens I bought a bass the same as Paul McCartney's. I met some guys my age who were good guitarists and a drummer. We played most Sunday arvos in a church hall.
In my early 20s I took up surfing and sold my bass. Then I got married and had kids. We moved to Lakes Entrance and I started a surf shop.
I met a couple of young surfers, a guitarist and a bassist, who were keen to play music. We started jamming together with my brother on drums. I bought my first guitar, a red Suzuki 335, and a Peavey Studio 65 watt amp. About that time a great player from Melbourne moved to Lakes Entrance. He became a mentor to us. He taught us so much about guitar and music. He sadly passed away during the late 80s. We all went our separate ways. I moved down the coast to Inverloch, met a guitarist and bassist and percussion player. We gigged once a month in a bar restaurant in Venus Bay. We played rock and blues.
I eventually moved back to Metung where I met a lot of great musicians and once a month on a Sunday afternoon we'd get together at the local pub and play all types of music. The two guys I originally played with in Lakes Entrance moved back, as did my brother, so we got back together formed a band called South of East. We wrote and played our own music as well as covers. We did a lot of gigs in Melbourne and Gippsland for 7 years.
I've recently been playing in a bass guitar and drums outfit called Ocean Swells up at Forster Tuncurry each year over winter. That's mainly blues rock covers. Over the last few years I've taken a keen interest in bebop jazz - Miles Davis, John Coltrane. I've also taken up playing piano. I recently bought an 88 key Roland electric piano. I'm teaching myself with a bit of help from Youtube."
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