I started out playing solo jazz piano. Eventually I picked up a guitar and started teaching myself to play. In early highschool, I started jamming (me on keys) with a couple of guys. We started a little band in '98 and called ourselves the Soul Merchants. It was mostly blues tunes and rock covers. Toward the end of the year, we merged with another band, The Blueskies Band and entered the Ottawa Citizen Bluesfest Blues in the Schools contests. We were an 11-piece band with horn section (me on trumpet and keys). We won the contest that year and went on to play at the Ottawa Bluesfest on Canada Day.
For a couple of years, I played keys for both The Soul Merchants and The Blueskies Band, gigging in the Ottawa area. Eventually, Blueskies split up as some members left Ottawa. There was some shuffling within The Soul Merchants as well. I started playing bass and we acquired a new drummer. We changed our name to The Liquorstore Bandits (LSB). We played more rock covers and wrote a few of our own tunes. LSB went on for several years and we still play every once in a while. The band is scattered across Eastern Ontario so it's rare that we're all together anymore.
In 2005 I was sitting in as the bass player in Hothouse, the blues/rock host band for a weekly open stage at the Rainbow Bistro blues club in Ottawa. In the spring of 2005, I sat in on bass with Bobcat Gray for a couple of shows including NXNE in Toronto. In 2007, I did some bass and piano session work for the band Bluestone at Phase One Studio in Scarborough, ON. I have done some live shows on both bass and piano with Bluestone as well.
Over the past few years I have really gotten into audio recording and production and now have a little studio set up. It's growing slowly but surely. Eventually, I hope to move it into a more appropriate space. So far, I have been recording/producing my own material as well as some session work/engineering/producing for some local artists.