How did you get started in the industry?

When I first started out all I wanted was to play electric guitar. One fateful day I walked into a local Music Store looking to buy a vintage Fender Stratocaster and ended up not only buying one but spending lots of time and money there. It turned out that the owner also ran a fledgling PA Company (later named TourTech) that was doing some small tours as well as numerous one offs. I sort of fell into doing gigs on the PA, by taking time off from my regular job, until it got to the point that I was taking more time off than I was actually working. The crunch came when I was offered a six week tour in Germany, so I took the plunge, packed in my day job and here I am.

 

What tours have you worked on?

Well, it's not an exhaustive list but here are a few notable tours I've worked on over the years, vaguely in chronological order: The Equals, The Jets, Roman Holiday, The Revillos, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Mission (UK), All About Eve, Voice of the Beehive, Stereo MCs, Swing Out Sister, The Pretenders, The Kinks, Right Said Fred, Embrace, Bernard Butler, Helloween, Arch Enemy, Craig David, Tindersticks, Tokio Hotel, Morrissey.

 

How did you first hear about Allen & Heath?

On my very first tour, the one and only desk the PA Company owned was a classic Allen & Heath 16 channel mixer. I never actually got to use it, as I was basically just plugging things in and generally assisting the engineer, who was mixing both FOH and Monitors on it. Interestingly, about a week or two into the tour, the desk was stolen from a venue (somewhere in Germany) and I was convinced that was going to be the end of the tour, the demise of the PA Company and the end of my then very short career.

 

What’s your mixer of choice and why?

My desk of choice now is the dLive S3000 Surface with DM64 MixRack, and prior to that it was an iLive-80 system. Apart from the fact they sound great, I love the compact frame of both of these consoles and I love the ability to customise the layout of the channel strips at will – ‘anything, anywhere'. I've become totally reliant on having wireless remote control of the consoles too, ever since the original iLiveTweak iOS iPhone app was released.

 

How do you see the future of live sound changing?

I think live sound has already changed immeasurably in the last 5 to 10 years, with digital consoles becoming the new standard. I think the next step will be the arrival of a lot more touchscreen only surfaces.