My earliest memory is of my mum telling me I could choose one of my dad’s vinyl records to listen to while I ate my lunch of mackerel on toast; my father had bookshelves full of records, and he would (thankfully) insist on playing them to me constantly. I chose a record with a front cover full of orange sky and multi-coloured rocks. I later found out that it was ‘Houses of The Holy’ by Led Zeppelin. It blew my head off (not literally of course) – I’d never heard anything like it before, so much so that my dear mother suggested that I choose another record more suitable for eating at the table, and that record was an original pressing of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.

Some years later, I managed to strong-arm my dad into buying me a guitar. However, much to my distress, it was of a pink-sparkly design. Nevertheless, after a few hours fell in love with it.

I started lessons with a local guitar maker, and soon after I was playing with a band a school; we promptly one the battle of the bands West Sussex. From these first steps I realised that playing guitar could be both a creative and fulfilling pastime.

Later on I studied at The Brit School, and then on to the Commercial Music course at the University Of Westminster. It was here that I was able to connect with other musicians, and began to make records of my own.

My first paid gig was at the University of Glamorgan. A friend from Westminster called me up and said, ‘Wanna do a gig?’ I threw myself into it and had to learn about 25 songs in the space of a week. More gigs soon followed with the same pool of players; the network widened and soon I was a working professional playing up and down the country from universities to ballrooms, and theatres with tribute shows as well as covers bands.

Since then I have had a constant mix to playing live shows with a variety of bands, had a record deal, recorded an album in California, become a singer, bassist, a composer for adverts, library music contributor, music therapist and a tutor.

Ben