Growing up in the
small town of Wimborne, Dorset, I got together with a couple of friends
to form a band, we wrote songs together and practiced them in my parents
garage, mainly playing rock and metal music. We were largely influenced
by Nirvana, Greenday, Rage Against The Machine, Metallica and such like.
As a teenager in '97, my musical tastes began to change. I started listening
to alot of old "stoner" rock like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin
as well as hip hop like Cypress Hill and Public Enemy, and random blues
and funk from the '70s. Laid back grooves and heavy bass inspired me further,
and I left the metal bands behind to join the High School Soul Band as
guitarist.
When i turned 16 i got a job as general glass collector and pot washer in a smokey jazz club on Poole docks. some of the greatest jazz players from the south always played there every night. I stayed there long enough till i was managing the bar and one night i was asked to join the band for a few songs as they new i played a bit of guitar. By that time i had learnt the blues and was able to just improvise with these old dudes into the early hours.
In 2001 I left my home town and moved to the City of Portsmouth where I met
local dj Monkey P owner of the Durty Sound System. He introduced me to
monthly hip hop night the Go*Off, taking its name from an old B.Boy
term. Hip hop acts from all over performed there, including: Lord Finesse,
Afrika Bambaataa, Mr Thing, Skinnyman, People Under The Stairs, Cash Money,
Blade, DJ Format, Jehst, Lewis Parker, Mr Thing, Yungun, Ritchy Pitch,
Mark Ronson, Skitz, Rodney P, Buck 65 and many others.
Go*Off resident dj Panoramix
played old hip hop and rare funk every wednesday in the back room of a
Southsea pub. Here i met Mc Bully who one night brought a mic down to
rap some bars. Soon this became a regular open mic slot for other mcs
to spit their verses. Some of these mcs inspired me to write lyrics of
my own and later I invested in some equipment to start making music. The
night went on for months where I practiced my bars alongside local mcs
including Gleem, Walshy, Chemistry, Mongrel, Audio Huslter, Starksy, Bevis,Yason
and the infamous Mc Magic.
Over a couple of years I produced
loads of tracks for various mcs and made an ep with Audio Hustler aka
Tenchoo, Portsmouth freestyle battle champion at the time. We recorded
8 tracks for a cd but never had the chance to perform any of them live;
the open mic night was soon shut down due to noise complaints.
By 2005 I was working
with mc Bully and mc Starsky, and with Starsky missing out on a few recording
sessions I filled in on the mic. We recorded about 15 tracks together and
DJ Panoramix joined prividing scratches and assistance on the mastering.
Under the name of "Simian Plus" we performed live shows in 2006
around the south coast.
With bookings in Bournemouth, Chichester,
Brighton, Potsmouth, Gosport and the Isle Of Wight word quickly got round
about Southsea's news live hip hop crew. I made 500 copies of our cd and
gave them out free at all our shows, our new website saw over 2000 downloads
of our ep. Unfortunately the crew had to split as mc Bully left Portsmouth
for the Westcountry.
With the extra spare
time, I teamed up with local dj Monkey P to start a new hip hop night. Fittingly
titled 'Bring The Noise' was a chance for local crews, mcs, djs and beatboxers
to showcase their talent alongside bigger names in the scene. Acts included
A Shade Of Gray, Olympic Chimps, Rudehill, Gleem, Rusty Sherrif, Theory
and Isle of Wight legend Cooly Haste.
Regular dj slots and open mic sessions
took place with live bass guitar and MPC beats. In the second year of BTN
we'd grown large and brought bigger atcs down to the south like Dirty Diggers,
DJ Exchalibah, Kashmere, Ghost and Verb T. Plus a very special collaboration
event with Happy Feet Producions (IOW) for the WildStyle 25th Anniversary,
with live performance from Cold Crush Brothers DJ Charlie Chase and Prince
Whipper Whip from the Fantastic 5.
After 2 years of promoting
other acts at Bring the Noise, I wanted to return to my own music. Some
time after university I moved out of Portsmouth where I began writing new
music, this evolved into my first solo album under the alias of Counter
Step. During 2007 I continued to perform live accompanied by specially selected
guests DJ Panoramix, J-Blaze from A Shade of Gray and beatboxers Bevis and
Rashbombs on the 10 show mini live tour.
In 2008 I'm taking time out to make
my second record which is a return with a more rock/blues feel and playing
guitar for the album and live shows to follow. I have also recently joined
up with the mighty "A Shade Of Gray" crew from Gosport on production,
album projects and full live tour for Next year.
