About Me
So here's the deal.I was born in Holland in 1977, but was living in Adelaide, Australia before my first birthday. Fast forward 12 years and I reached that point that I think all boys reach where they have the urge to hit things. Not people of course, DRUMS.Basically, taught myself drums, along with guitar and piano, but drums was my main interest. By age fifteen I was playing in clubs and spent the next few years as a regular fixture within the local Adelaide original music scene, playing in bands, freelancing, recording. But basically being paid to hit things.1997 saw my first musical venture overseas. A tour of about 15 multicultural performers traveling through France and into Spain. HUGE learning experience and one Ill never forget for both good and bad reasons. However I enjoyed the collaboration of music and travel and over the next few years toured to New Zealand on more than one occasion, as well beginning to play interstate. When home, I continued to play in bands and even tried my hand at some management as well as producing.In 2000 I was asked to play for Adelaide band Fruit and have continued to do so until this day: Fruit have been fortunate enough to have undertaken 13 tours throughout America as well as multiple tours to UK, Europe, Canada, and Asia, so the music/travel combo have served me well so far. Within this time I have also managed to set up a couple of writing collaborations which gives me a chance to work on my guitar and piano abilities as a writing tool. Also had some more producing experience, which is something Id like to learn lots more about. In the last few years Ive managed to do some freelance touring in any down time from Fruit commitments and I must say that I can think of fewer jobs Id rather be doing that than traveling the world through Music......Percussion:
Sometime in 2001 after coming off stage in Philadelphia with Fruit, I was asked to play percussion with the following band, an Afro/Reggae/Funk outfit from Washington DC. They had a large percussion rig onstage and invited me to play the gig with them, which of course I did. I had so much fun I decided that day I got home I would buy myself a percussion rig.Shortly after purchasing my percussion rig, I was invited to play along side a DJ friend of mine, and since then I haven't had a weekend in Adelaide where I wasn't playing in one of Adelaide top dance music clubs. I guess you could say I've specialized in playing house music which has since given me the opportunity to play alongside some of most famous DJs and dance music producers from Australia and worldwide, including; Boogie Pimps, Martin Solvig, Colour Sound, Alex Taylor, Chicken Lips, the Aviators...I feel privileged to be able to participate in so many different Genres of music. Within the live music scene I get to play everything from Singer Songwriter based material to Soul, Funk, Rock, Folk and then of course, with my DJ related percussion gigs I'm playing to banging house, RNB, Hip Hop. It's all good stuff though and keeps me inspired to keep pursuing many different avenues of drums and percussion.
