1.Growing Up
I was fortunate to study under the great Tony Calabro, who had amassed an incredible amount of amazing students, guys like Jack Jones (Irwin Thomas), Troy MacCubbin (Tatu, Enrique Iglesias) and Ben Carey (Savage Garden, Lifehouse), to name a few. It was a great community and atmosphere to develop in.
2. Inspirations
The first guitarists I noticed were Peter Frampton and Mark Knopfler, through my parents’ record collection. Though hearing Eric Johnson’s ‘Cliffs Of Dover’ on a tear-out record from a guitar magazine was a definite ‘I want to do that!’ kinda moment.
3. Your Band
3WM is Alex King on bass, Brendon Waterman on drums and myself on guitar. We started five years ago playing jam nights and band comps, then doing supports for bands we met along the way. Opening for Featherfest (2012) and Progfest (2013) were great opportunities. We’ve produced two studio albums over the past 18 months, and are looking forward to our first gig back, supporting Plini on February 19 at the Newtown Social Club.
4.The Music You Make
Our music is instrumental prog/fusion. Our latest album Progetto Arte features a lot of direct-to-disc improvisation, which has then been chopped up in post-production to create compositions, a production style reminiscent of the great Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew album.
5. Music, Right Here, Right Now
We’ve been optimistic about the new technologies available to independently produce and release music. Our video for ‘Panopticon’ has been viewed over 250,000 times in six months. Those opportunities didn’t exist ten years ago. Definitely an artist to watch is Plini, who is doing amazing things in our genre, and a reminder that great music can find an audience.
Three Wise Monkeys support Plini at Newtown Social Club on Friday February 19.
