Biography
I grew up next door to a very musical family and with their influence I discovered the passion of playing,singing and writing music. In 1978 I started working in the music business as an assistant at RAK studios in London. Making tea, placing mics and operating the tape machine for The Jam, Paul McCartney’s Wings and lots of crappy English post-punk bands. My boss was legendary producer, the late Mickie Most (Hot Chocolate,The Animals,Jeff Beck,Kim Wilde). His approach was “find a great singer – find them a smash song – make a hit record”. He made it seem that easy, ouch!
I graduated to recording engineer and worked with two more successful and inspirational producers, Steve Lillywhite (U2) and Alex Sadkin (Bob Marley).From 1980 I started producing and began with The Cure (“Pornography”,”Love Cats”) .I became a mixer for hire working on albums for Sting, XTC and DuranDuran. I joined The Cure as bass player and toured the world.
During the studio years I would stay ‘after hours’ to record my own songs eventually making a solo album and an album with the group “Johnny Hates Jazz”.
I realised that my passion was for writing songs; not performing them. The penny drops….
On a writing session with Anne Previn and Scott Cutler we wrote the song “Torn” for Anne’s Demo tape. Later I produced Natalie Imbruglia performing that song and the accompanying album “Left Of The Middle” eventually sold 9 million copies.Voila!
More recently I’ve enjoyed Three UK Number One’s (“Mama Do”,“Boys & Girls” and "Cry Me Out") with the Pixie Lott. I have written for the stage (West End Show “Dreamboats And Petticoats”) and also recently TV commercials for Peugot and Dreams Beds,see the Links page.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with great songwriters such as Wayne Hector,Sir Don Black and Bryan Adams, see the 'Wall of Shame'. I'm currently enjoying a productive writing and producing partnership with Mads Hauge. Check out the new and available songs on the ‘New Tunes’ link.
Phil