First exposure to music was sax lessons as a young kid in the northern BC town of Fort St John where I grew up. Played baritone sax and then flute in the high school concert and jazz band (talk about both ends of the scale), then picked up a guitar somewhere around age 14 inspired by the likes of Cat Stevens, James Taylor and Jim Croce etc., leading to performing and writing in the singer/songwriter genre which is something I still do today.

    
I moved down to Vancouver in the late 70’s to pursue a musical career, doing solo work around various pubs and at the same time studying voice and singing with the BC Boys Choir, where I was the tenor soloist. Soon after met Geoff Gibbons and formed Silverlode, and after completing a 6-month stint in Australia, came back to Vancouver to record our first EP which contained the song Sky High that was played on radio stations across Canada and received critical acclaim.    

We followed that up with a full-length album that won Best Independent Release at the West Coast Music Awards in 1983 among nominees such as the Payolas. This led to all kinds of great gigs, lots of touring, radio, and TV stuff like the Jimmy Ferguson Show and the Fame Game on CBC, regular appearances on CKVU’s The Vancouver Show, and a spot on the couch on The Alan Thicke Show. We also were invited to play some opening  sets for the likes of The Little River Band and Leo Sayer at the Orpheum, David Crosby, the McGarigle Sisters, Levon Helm and Rick Danko at the Commodore, Emmylou Harris at Expo Theatre – oh the memories!!!  It was great while it lasted.