TomTom

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Hey!! Im Tom. Into my music, big time!
I started playing drums 18 years ago; it was a Christmas morning and after 6 months of hitting everything in sight my parents finally gave in and brought me a drum kit. After a few hours of constant drumming my parents thought it would be a good idea to show me one of my father’s guitars. 18 years on I am still playing one of his guitars….. (Thanks dad) ;-)
During school I was never really interested in what teachers had to say, constantly looking out the window thinking of better things I could be doing, more inspiring people I could be meeting and better places I could be seeing whilst playing music.
This led me at 15 to playing drums in my father’s band at the time Slowhand. Slowhand was an Eric Clapton tribute performance which travelled all over the country playing events from dinner parties to big venue concerts. During this time I learnt that playing drums was not all about hitting them as hard and fast as possible but about dynamics and knowing when not to play. It opened my world to a whole new style of playing which led me to understand that there is so many different ways of approaching the drums. During this time I was into the big rock bands of the day like Metallica and Guns n Roses but then started to understand the brilliance of people like Steve Gadd and Terry Bozzio which I started to incorporate into my style of playing. I enjoyed bringing something from one genre of music into another, something of which still excites me as a player today.
After 3 years of playing drums for my father’s band I felt I had neglected my guitar playing so looked for a new project. My first audition was for a Stratford band called Ikon. The guys in the band were older but I held my own in a very very tight and technical band. As a guitarist I’d played in school with friends and at home with tapes (remember them!!!!) but never in an established band. My first 2 gigs being Camden Underworld which is still one of the best venues in London and the second gig was supporting Lost Prophets in Coventry which was such an amazing experience.
At 18 I started playing drums again for a few local bands which led me to the Marrs Bar in Worcester which is where I met Carl Lewis, who at the time was fronting the band Lukash. Carl took me under his wing and showed me the ways of song writing (I still think today he is one of the best I’ve worked with), blagging tours and general “get you by in life” lessons that every musician has to learn at some point.
At 20 I started to get a bit fed up of playing. Things were not sounding exciting anymore. Music at the time was not really doing anything for me. Until I met Nick Ebanks who talked of a better world where music was not 4/4, chords didn’t have to make sense, in fact! Songs didn’t have to make sense!! So we got together with Mark Stevenson and formed Keiko. This was my first attempted at song writing which looking back went rather well. After a year of touring everywhere and anywhere we signed to Lockjaw Records and a year later, released our CD. Toured with bands such as Hundred Reasons and Hell is for Heroes and toped it all off by playing Download Festival in 2006. After a summer of trying to please everyone and forgetting why we started the whole thing in the first place we finished, mainly for our sanity more then anything. We’d tasted the sweetness of being a full time band and got tossed into the trash like a lot of wonderful artists who tried to please others. From this many lessons have been learned.
I gave up music for a year to start understand why I started in the first place. I found it was because I love the feeling of completing a song, the buzz you get from playing in front of people and the excitement of doing something you have never done before. The bands I play for now are very different but are challenging in so many ways. I am always looking for new projects and new styles of music to challenge me. This I believe is the only way you can become a better musician and one of the main reasons I play today.
Thank you for taking the time to read the above.
If you have any questions or anything please give me a message or comment and I will do my best to get back to you asap.
At the mo, im playing drums with the BANG BANGS!!! We are recording a album which is due next year. There are some tracks from that already on the myspace (www.myspace.com/meetthebangbangs). CHECK IT OUT!
My good friends Pegasus Bridge are still in early stages but are really coming on as a band. Check out some recordings on http://www.myspace.com/pegasusbridge