When did you first start making music? I first started making music in grade 10 after my Mum bought me my first guitar.
Tell us about ‘I Lost My Way’. In 2016 my son Guthrie was born. It was the most incredible time of my life. Having a beautiful new little person in our life was, I now realise, a bigger change than imagined. I spent the first four months living exactly the same as I had before, which meant as a full-time musician gigging five-six nights a week, as well as a gym regime of four to five times a week doing Olympic lifting. Needless to say the sleep deprivation, heavy workouts, drinking, ongoing workload and no downtime took its toll. I became physically and emotionally exhausted. In the lead up to Christmas I had an incident at a gig where I started spinning uncontrollably, dizzy and unable to stand up. It resulted in a trip to the hospital in an ambulance to stop the spinning which went on for an hour. I thought I was having a stroke but the doctors thought it was just a middle ear incident and told me I needed to be taking it easy. After that I experienced bouts of extreme anxiety after weight lifting and sometimes cases of not being able to breathe a full breath properly.
During Christmas in the safety of my family I hit the wall. I felt unable (emotionally and physically) to cope with the smallest, everyday tasks. Insomnia and anxiety was at its peak and I really didn’t know what to do. Unlike most, I hadn’t experienced any form of mental health problems before and wasn’t equipped with any coping mechanisms. How I overcame this is another story. But, within the safe, loving hands of family and friends I was able to move through it. My beautiful wife Georgie scooped me up in her hands and carried me for those months with her love and endless care.
In some ways I am grateful for the experience. It gave me a new understanding of myself and others. I now hope to approach other people’s problems with actual empathy rather than just saying “Oh that’s no good mate.”
What do you love about making music? Collaborating is the thing I enjoy most.
