About Me
Stevie Fitz has been a lover of music since he can remember. From an early age, Stevie was blessed with the ability to appreciate the many different varieties of music available to the ear. From classical to rock, from pop to jazz, if he liked a tune, he would listen to it and appreciate it for what it was, no matter the genre, a policy he still adopts to this day. His very first musical purchase was a seven-inch single in the form of Elton John’s – I’m Still Standing. To get it, he had to send away coupons from the back of a Frosties cereal packet together with a few pennies (having been about 4 years old at the time, this was quite a task!).Stevie feels that his two music-loving sisters were a huge influence during his upbringing, exposing him to the sounds of The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Joan Armatrading and The Cure (to name but a few). He can still hear Radio One’s Mark Goodyear resonating from their bedroom, counting down the Top 40 singles on a Sunday afternoon, when Mark first began hosting the infamous show back in the early eighties. And it was during the eighties that Stevie started to focus on one particular sound from all of the different sounds in the music he had been exposed to, the electronic sound of the synthesizer.
He feels he is very fortunate to have lived through the eighties, as musically they had to be one of the most exciting times. Bands such as Depeche Mode, A-Ha, Gary Numan, Japan, The Thompson Twins, Tears for Fears, Visage and Eurhythmics gracing the airwaves with their big electronic synth sounds! It was also during the eighties whilst at secondary school that he began to show his musical flare, learning to play the trombone (reaching lead trombone within the Le Rocquier School Band) and also having a dabble with the keyboard and the drums whenever he got the chance.But it was when Stevie left school at 16 years young that he found the road to electronic heaven in the form of local nightspot The Inn on the Park (affectionately known as “The Pav†to the “hardcore†members!) which had the likes of Sasha, Paul Oakenfold, Parkes & Wilson and John Kelly regularly gracing the turntables of the 1500 capacity club during 1990-91. Truly mesmerized by the talents of these DJs and the music they were playing, he soon invested in a pair of turntables, spending all of his spare cash on new vinyl and spending all of his spare time improving his DJing skills. It was not long before he was playing in various clubs around the island, including Raffles Dance City and The Venue, warming up for various guest DJ’s including Mike Cosford, Tom Wainwright and Trevor Rockliffe.A trip to Thailand at the end of 1996 for two months saw him land a residency at “Sante Fe†on the beautiful island of Koh Samui, DJing four times a week. Also, whilst in Thailand, he was fortunate enough to play at one of the infamous Full Moon Parties on Koh Phangan to a crowd of approximately 5000 people, which is an experience he will never forget.Already, the idea of writing and producing tunes was firmly embedded in his mind and it was not long after returning from Thailand that he began investing in equipment for his home based studio. Stevie soon began writing music, lyrics and poetry and learning about the various ins and outs of production.
In November 2001, he secured his first exclusive licencing agreement with Japanese publishers Toryumon under the alias B.O.L.T. Since then, he has secured many more licencing agreements with Toryumon under various different solo and DJ collaborative aliases including Tech House Project, The Loop Rebels, Ear 4 Vision, Stefano Kerami and of course, C.O.U. Muzik, all of which have had their music licenced for either download, ringtones, website promotion or corporate advertising. And it was the collaboration with long time friends Sasha Le Monnier and James Leaman to form C.O.U. Muzik when his production skills were recognized by top digital labels Source of Gravity Digital, Gravitation, Bellarine, Ascension, Pangea, LuPS, Nightshade Music and Fiberlineaudio who began signing C.O.U. Muzik’s tracks and throwing remix work their way from various DJ/producers including Matt Rowan, Jeff Devas, Sean McClellan (KVK), Tim Mills, Darin Epsilon, Matias Popoff, Native, Jacco @ Work, Nosmo v Kris B and The Chrono Logic.So, with top labels signing Stevie's solo and collaborative production work and with new collaborations and remix projects already in the pipeline for 2009, keep your ears honed in to those airwaves because it won't be long before you hear one of Stevie’s productions, whether you like it or not!
