I grew up in York which some people may know is in Yorkshire in the North of England.

Early exposure to Top of The Pops, the John Peel show and my best friend’s older brothers’ record collection created an overwhelming desire to be involved in popular music. At 14 I bought my first bass guitar and began playing with as many bands as would have me . By 17 I had started writing my own songs and forming my own bands. At 19 I realised I needed to broaden my horizons and moved to London to chase the dream. I got my first taste of the music business playing with a colourful character called Patrik Fitzgerald, known as ‘The Punk Poet’, recording a single and touring Britain – the legendary Teardrop Explodes were the support band!

After this experience I was keen to carry on being paid to play music and spent a year as Toyah’s bass player, touring and recording. Although this was fun, I realised I needed to do my own thing and left just before my 21st birthday.

There followed a few years of doing session work while working on my own band ‘The Lost Boys’, who eventually secured a major contract with MCA in 1986. We recorded an album of my songs in New York in some of the best studios in the world, only to return to find that MCA had replaced all the people who were behind us at the label. After this somewhat deflating experience I started to work behind the scenes at a friend’s studio, doing a lot of writing and programming.

There followed a ‘lost weekend’ of being involved in music which did not reflect my own taste in any serious way. As an amusing side note, this did result in a song I had co-written becoming a top twenty hit performed by a former soap opera star!

Around 1990 I got my head back on straight and went back to working with bands again, producing and engineering. Where required I sometimes also play bits on people’s records, mostly keyboards. This has continued to the present day.

A serious turning point happened when I met Sean O’Hagan and the High Llamas in 1992, co-producing some songs which ended up forming half of their ‘Santa Barbara’ album, an association which has continued to this day with many exciting and creative recordings.

In 1997 out of the blue I got a call that REM may want me to engineer their next album. After meeting them in Athens, Georgia I was chosen for the job and had a fascinating and rewarding time working with them on their ‘Up’ album.

In 2003 my wife and I fulfilled a long-held wish and moved out of London to the wonderful city of Cardiff. There was no big plan, but having got to know the great people at Musicbox rehearsals, we joined forces to create a modest recording facility in line with the current trend for low budget but killer recordings. At present we are looking at ways to expand without trying to become an old-style mega-studio, and we are making many varied and wonderful albums and singles for a wide variety of labels.