TSO is AMAZING!! It's just the most incredible experience!
Like all the best things it kind of happened by accident. I'd absolutely never heard of them - I was in NY and went to meet this cellist about a recording project, and he brought along quite by chance this woman called Dina who'd been auditioning violinists for my 'role'..
. She asked me to meet the producers so we went straight to the studio and I met these guys with long hair, tight jeans and leather jackets, they gave me some sheet music and the next day before my flight back to the UK i went down to Brooklyn to one of the guys' house to audition. Totally random.
It was only when I got back to London and googled them I realised it was actually quite a big deal. So then I practised the pieces again, filmed myself and sent over DVD's of me performing the music..
.and then when I heard I was in with a chance I booked myself a flight to NY and showed up to the final auditions. It all paid off!
Highlights - er...
..too many!
!! The whole thing is just an mind-blowing experience - how many violinists gets to play as part of a 7 piece rock band, complete with pyrotechnics, lasers a 7 piece orchestra, incredible singers and tour around America playing in front of 5,000 to 15,000 people every night (sometimes twice a day!
!)..
.??
?.oooh - AND I get to go up on the scissor lift that was used for the KISS tour - I think I'm definitely the only violinist ever to go up on those with jets of coloured smoke spewing out the bottom!
Seriously - it's an incredible opportunity and I feel totally lucky and honoured to be part of it. And the fans are crazy and brilliant - they bake us Christmas cookies and make us Christmas ornaments and everything!!
! My mum started me off on the violin. She wouldn't let me start playing until I knew about the 'responsibilities of practice'.
...
(I was seven)...
- she then made me practice every day, even when I had friends round I had to go into my room for 15 mins and my friends would have to play with my little sister. I always loved loved LOVED performing and playing in concerts and competitions, but I never wanted to be a classical musician. No-one told me that touring and playing in bands was an option.
So I went to London School of Economics and studied Social Policy Government - Mick Jagger I think went there for one term or something...
I worked for politicians, got involved in student politics but got a bit disillusioned by the second year - I wanted to leave and just do music (I'd started playing with bands and doing random recording stuff) but I knew my parents would KILL me so I stuck it through. I'm glad I did, but the day I graduated I felt like this huge weight off my shoulders and remember taking off my graduation gown and cap thinking 'RIGHT!!
!! NOW I can do what IIIIIIIIIII want to do!
!!" I felt totally free!
!! So I worked for producers, bands, singers saying yes to EVERYTHING - played for African/Celtic bands, for breakbeat/Klezmer bands, a random session for Robin Gibb, TV work for a whole load of people where you sit and mime on Top Of The Pops/MTV/GMTV etc etc and one thing led to another.
...
. Main influences? Too many to mention - I've learnt something from every single musician I've ever played with from every country I've played in.
I listen to LOADS of styles of music...
.my first cassette album was MC Hammer so I've no idea what that says about me. I remember being hooked on the Bangles and Bananarama when I was about 9, and listening to Guns n' Roses and Bon Jovi when I was about 12 with my bedroom windows WIDE open so everyone on the street could just how cool i was.
:) I got into Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, I always listened to classical music but my musical taste is a total mix. It really depends what mood I'm in and who I'm with. I come back from the Middle East and all I will listen to is Fairuz, Om Kalthoum and Oriental House music and then I'll spend three months on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra tour and come back listening to Lynrd Skynrd, Allman Brothers and Pink Floyd.
Now of course I only listen to Jethro Tull. I prefer to call it an 'Albumette' - short and sweet. It was only meant to be a little EP as a kind of business card - but then the TSO fans were asking me to produce something, and then it took me ages to figure out exactly how I wanted my solo stuff to SOUND (people are always asking me if I'm going to do vocals.
.!!
) and then I thought - this is the first thing I'm creating of my own - I just want it to represent where I am right NOW and not worry about what everyone else wants or expects. In that respect, I think it's an honest representation of me. It has a lot of my rock influences, the gypsy influences, the Eastern and Arabic influences.
...
but it's not programmed or in any way fake. It's a proper band that got into a studio together for three days and recorded the tracks. And then Nick Wollage mixed it and made it sound huge and brilliant.
It sounds exactly how it sounded in my head before we recorded a note, so it's a starting point that i'm happy with...
.I really like 'Gypsy' 'cos that's the first one that Angus and I did together..
.. I love the layers in 'Bombay to Beirut' and the emotion in 'Revenge'.
...
hehe...
and the 'Route 149' background is me recording on my laptop on the way to the JayZ and Beyonce rehearsals...
the 149 Bus goes from my street down to London Bridge. The last track is the wind in Ireland where my parents live in and it's me and my dad walking across the gravel in our driveway going down to the stream at the bottom of the garden - that was me taking a video on my camera - there's also a couple of Jordanian weddings that I played at in there somewhere too..
...
.it's me, my violin, and my travels..
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My plan for the coming year is just to do a really great job with the Tull Tour and have fun! I'm pencilled in for about 90 shows worldwide so as long as they go well, and then the TSO tour goes well and in between I get some more solo material written and recorded and manage to fly back out to play in the Middle East and and work on recording with different producers and artists here in the UK, then that should be enough!!
! I just think this year is going to be a great learning curve and just a totally brilliant experience on all levels. It's definitely the happiest and most excited I've felt for a long time - I can't wait for it all to start!
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