SO WHERE DID THE da FNK STORY BEGIN??? Jon - AKA da FNK was born in the UK in 1976 (a very hot year!!). I picked up my dad's 12-string guitar at age 6yrs and played all night until my fingers bled to learn three chords so I could play a song (some Bob Dylan thingy). The rest is history!!......
BLOW THAT HORN!!
In my teens I did the whole classical music traing bit (got my grade-8 on trombone) basically because the first horm player in the county orchestra was tres-chic! Boy could she blow a horn at band-camp!!
G-STRING DIVA!!
So I hit my mid-teens and figured that girls liked guys that played guitar so I got a 20 quid Gibson SG copy and played it as loud as my 20W tranny amp would let me. However, competition was hard - there was this guy at school who was some kind of guitar prodigy and made everyone else look crud - so I got into bass guitar. Ten Level-42 CDs, a bit of Stanley Clarke and some Marcus Miller thrown in for good luck and I was slapping my thing with the best of 'em as a pro-bass guitarist.
SAD BUT TRUE...
In the mid-90s I formed a band with the guitarist from Patsi Kensit's band 8th Wonder and did the whole showcasing thing around London trying to get a record deal. We headlined at the music publisher's association annual conference, did some writing with Chris Dfford (Squeeze) got some development money from Sony S2 and Warner Bros. , but ended up splitting up for personal reasons. The highlight of this whole episode had to be the gig we did at Madam Jo Jo's in Soho on the same night the News Of The World Newspaper was filming the GET YOUR TITS OUT FOR CHRISTMAS video. We shared the dressing room with the stars of the video. Thanks girls - you gave me 10 years experience in 10 minutes!!
NERD ALERT!!!!
So, anyhow, this whole band-record deal thing collapsed and I decided to go off and get a degree at York University in Music Technology and Electronics. That's when I bought this cool analogue synth from Bulmer's second hand shop in York (cost me a terms' food money). I had access to loads of cool stuff at the Uni for recording. While the band I was living with at college were busy sha**ing girls from Leeds on the flat roof of my mate Alquin's house, which happened to be right outside my bedroom window (you naughty, naughty boyz!!), I was busy writing and composing - It could possibly be at this stage of life that I developed my sense of ryhthm, largely thanks to the heavy pumping on the roof brainwashing me while I was asleep!
WATCHA DOING NOW??
After 5 years of writing pop-crud, I've just taken a fresh look at what I actually want in life. The truth is I absolutely adore hitting a night club and letting the drums and bass pump my sole. So I figured, let's cut throught the c**p, and start writing the sort of tunes I like listening and dancing to. Cheeze OUT - Funk Skunking, Sole Shaking, Adrenalin Pumping tunes IN. This has already yielded much better results with tracks played in major Spanish and USA clubs and interest from several major DJs.
THANKS!!!
Thanks everyone for your support over the last 10 years in several failed record deal attempts. It is probaly true that I have re-invented myself more times than Kylie Minogue's G-String. However, this time it is from the heart - so hope you like the new tunes. Keep it real!!
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