I've been playing music since I was 6 years old, when I started learning the violin at primary school. It seems a very long time ago now. Moved up to double bass when I got to secondary school, and have never looked back.

My weapon of choice is currently my Fender Jazz 5 string bass, usually hooked up to either an SWR combo, or a Hartke amp going through at least one Genz Benz 4x10 cab. I also use a Breedlove acoustic bass guitar, a very old short scale Fender Musicmaster piccolo bass, and a cheap but very chearful (and wonderful) Squire hybrid 4 string bass that funks with the best of them. For a little colour I sometimes add a Bass Pod but generally prefer to keep it all clean.

I haven't really grown up yet. To be honest, I'm trying very hard not to.

I've been in many bands over the years. Started off aged 9 in Trapeze (a kind of MOR standards outfit) at school, and caught the bug for playing live. Then moved onto Quest (Quest is BEST!) aged 14 or so, and listening back to the old recordings we did back then, we actually weren't too bad at all. I spent a lot of time playing in pit orchestras and must have played almost every musical and light operetta known to man in the intervening 5 years. Some of the Quest chaps moved on to form Custom Built with some local musicians, playing covers and getting residencies in local clubs for a number of years. I then met the amazing Eliot Minn, and the seeds were sown for what would eventually become Blind Panic (now The Far Meadow), a prog rock ball of wonderfulness, and over 20 years of magical music making. I also did a lot of session work at that time, playing in big bands, doing recordings, and gigging for an eclectic range of Russian superstars. Following a move “up north” from London, I’ve been mainly playing the blues, and spent a wonderful and extremely busy 5 years with The Steve French Band, probably the finest, tightest and therefore most underrated blues band in the country, such is the irony of the British live music scene. I also had the great privilege of supplying the bass for Kevin Thorpe’s Tipping Point, the last (and most appropriate) musical creation of the late Kevin Thorpe, the tragic loss of whom has left a permanently open wound deep inside my soul.

Kevin Thorpe. Obvious really.