I was born in to a working class Glasgow family. My parents could both sing and several family members were professional or amateur musicians so becoming a musician was almost a natural step for me. Until my early teens I listened to whatever music my parents played on their 8 track stereo; Glen Campbell, Louis Armstrong, The Carpenters, Elvis, Eagles, Sinatra, Jim Reeves, Billy Joel, Neil Diamond. At the age of 7 I was recording a capella versions of songs on my parents 8 track recorder. I drove my parents crazy trying to learn the phrasing for the Gilbert and Wrubel song Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah, from the movie Song Of The South. (come on, I was only a kid) When I was 10 I started to learn the piano accordion, which, as I later found out, was good grounding for playing most instruments....that's when music took a real hold.

In my early teens I began listening to pop music, songwriters like Lennon and McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Bruce Horsby. It was the honesty in their music that appealed to me. A couple of years later I discovered Bowie, Free, Bad Company, Led Zeppelin, Don Henley & of course The Eagles and Queen. Mixing all these musical ingredients together my style became more American than British. They say you are what you eat and the same applies to music. I was eating a smorgasboard of international music and I was beginning to sweat it out of my musical pores.

I founded my first band, when I was 16, writing songs with two school friends, Alan Scobie (piano) and David Snaddon (guitar). After a year writing material Alan and I found a local manager, Maurice Beacon, whose only musical credential was that his son, Kim Beacon, had once sung with String Driven Thing in the 70's. He did have a 4 track recording studio at his home and that was an important tool for a budding writer. Maurice sent cassette tapes to several record companies but nothing concrete came of the union and we all parted company in 1987. I was 20 years old.

With a government grant and weekly financial assistance I started a small business to allow me to continue to write. I answered an ad in the local paper for a singer. In September 87 I met Brian Cunningham and Alan Greenwood (Bud) in Brian's attic bedroom come studio. The music of Epic Leaf (as they were called at the time) was very professional but totally instrumental. I got the job as their singer and lyric writer. Around December of the same year, after we had recorded two songs, we sent cassettes away to eight record companies. Three months later an A & R person from Phonogram Records in London called to say he liked our tape. Several months later we signed to Phongram's Vertigo label using the name Arrival. By the time we finished the album we were known as Frontier.

We recorded the Frontier album with a 3 different producers; Adam Moseley (Maxi Priest, Kazume Watanabi, Bill Bruford), Gary Katz (the legendary Steeley Dan producer) and Ian Kewley (Paul Young's keyboard player, co-writer and M.D.). We used some session musicians e.g. Paul McCartney's keyboard player 'Wix', Graham Broad and Tony Beard (Go West drummers). We recorded at several studios including Jimmy Page's The Mill, Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, Rockfield and Air Sudios. The album was mixed at Pete Townsend's Eel Pie Studio in Richmond by Steve Jackson. (Dire Straits, Roachford, Deacon Blue). Our first single was the Gary Katz produced 'Lonely Heart' and our second was a cover of Graham Parker And The Rumours song called 'The Sun Is Gonna Shine Again' that we recorded at Texas' studio in Glasgow.

At the end of recording this album, as well as playing hundreds of small gigs, Frontier played two fabulous support tours to Glasgow bands Gun (UK university tour) and Wet Wet Wet (UK stadium tour including Wembley Arena). In September 92 I travelled to the U.S. and met prospective producers for our second album. Among those eager to work with Frontier were Charlie Midnight (Joe Cocker, James Brown) and Eddie Kramer (Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Hendrix, Kiss, Traffic, Buddy Guy, Paul Rogers, Peter Frampton). Unfortunately, while I was away, things were not going to plan back home in the U.K. Due to mismanagement our fist two singles were not distributed properly and therefore did not hit the record stores to coincide with our tours. Our A & R man was replaced and for whatever reason Frontier were dropped by Phonogram in November 1992. Due to lack of solid management the band split soon after. At that time I was 25 years old. Amazingly in 2006 as you'll read later I'm back collaborating with the guitarist from Frontier.

For the next 3 years I was managed by Elliott Davis (Wet Wet Wet's manager). I started another rock band called John Harley and The Pack. We never played a live show but we wrote and recorded in Elliott's studios for almost 2 years. During this time I performed solo, as John Harley, at hundreds of gigs in Glasgow, including T In The Park outdoor festival, supports to Duran Duran at Barrowlands and The Indigo Girls at King Tuts Wah Wah Hut. I performed regularly at The Glasgow Songwriters Club and at benefit shows for Romania, Glasgow Fire Brigade and Red Nose Day. I also won a Holsten Pils band search doing an acoustic set with Donny Little (guitarist with John Harley and The Pack).

After the Pack split I started working with Sandy Jones, an engineer and musician at The Brill Building in Glasgow. Sandy had worked with Wet Wet Wet amongst others and had come from a similar musical and social background as me. We co-wrote and recorded 8 tracks in a couple of months. It was 1995 and I finally had something I was proud of again. The problem was that Elliott (my manager) didn't think the new material was any good. We parted company and I took a break for a while. One of those songs 'Last Days Of Summer' won the Austalian National Songwriting Contest 2005. (10 years later) More info about that later.

In Glasgow I had grown tired of writing music and around 1994 a friend of mine started the Glasgow branch of a rock and roll travel agency called Trinifold Travel. I began looking after travel arrangements part time for acts like The Prodigy amongst others. The regular money was good.

After visiting Australia on holiday in 1994, my wife and I decided to move to Queensland in 1997. After a couple of months without work I answered an ad in a local newspaper for a singer and joined a band. The John Harley Band rehearsed with a view to doing covers and a few of my originals at venues around the Gold Coast but there wasn't enough money to sustain a five-piece band and we soon split. I had also started a time consuming job with a company called Showtravel looking after travel arrangements for the likes of Regurgitator, Powderfinger, Spiderbait, bits of Big day Out and Livid festivals andV8 Supercars.

While I was at Showtravel I played some of my songs to one of my clients, Festival Records, who happened to be located next door. I was asked if I could write a song for The Brisbane Lions AFL team. I wrote the song The Road To Victory on the acoustic guitar and sent a very rough copy to Sandy Jones in Glasgow along with a musical brief. Within a fortnight he sent back a CD with the music completed and I booked in to Red Zeds studio in Brisbane and laid down the vocal with Joe Panetta engineering. The Lions and Festival loved it. We released the song (on Festival's Fido label) in August 1999 in the run up to the finals in conjunction with The Lions. I performed the song live on Channel 7's Sportscene and the recording became a video that was played on the big screen at The Lions stadium, The Gabba. Unfortunately, the Lions decided to wait until the following year before winning the final so we stopped short of reaching big record sales.

From 2000-2005, as well as being musician/songwriter, I was an Art Dept Coordinator in the Film Industry. I've worked on shows like 'The Lost World' as well as Movies of the Week for cable TV in the U.S. I recently worked on the feature film, 'George of the Jungle 2' and 'Mermaids'. I also coordinated the Action Vehicles office on the 2nd World War feature film, 'The Great Raid', staring Benjamin Bratt and Joseph Fiennes.

In 2004, I was between jobs as they say in the film industry (i.e. unemployed) so I kicked myself up the arse and did a small business course so that I could release my first independent album 'Hope Harbour'. Amazingly I won the Australian National Songwriting Contest 2005 - rock category with 'Last Days Of Summer' which is on the album. The songs on 'Hope Harbour' are mainly from my collaboration with Sandy Jones (Wet Wet Wet engineer). Listen to soundbytes. As well as getting national and international press and radio in 2005 with 'Hope Habour' I went on to receive ‘highest level’ Honourable Mention from Billboard World Songwriting Contest 2006 and made the top 20 at the notoriously difficult Unisong Intl Songwriting Contest 2006, the competition that gave birth to Bonnie Raitt, Jimmy Buffet, Mick Fleetwood, Indigo Girls, Lisa Loeb.I was also voted one of the top 5 best vocalists in the independent music world by Dale Kawashima a heavy-weight US Music Publsiher who's looked after the catelogues of artists like The Beatles, Jackson, Natalie Umbruglia. See http://www.singeruniverse.com

In 2006 I also finished building a home recording studio - that's why I've been working so hard since I got to Australia - got to pay for the music gear somehow. I began work on a new album 'Welcome Back To Reality' in betewen gigging constantly and being Mr Mum (looking after my daughter Mackenzie). Who ever thinks they have no time on your hands when you're are single and have no kids is totally crazy. As a parent you become very effective at making the most of 30 mins free time. In the madness of parenthood in between making packed lunches and playing dinosaurs (my daughter wants to be a paeleontologist) I started approaching music equipment companies looking for sponsorship/endorsement deals. No-one else is going to do it for me. I managed to secure major deals with Takamine Guitars, D'Addario Guitar Strings and Neumann Microphones. These deals are brilliant and not only help you to be taken more seriously by your peers they also help us independent artists stay afloat financially.

What is an independent artist? A musician/songwriter not signed to a major publisher or major record company so as well as writing and recording all my own music I do all the artwork for the CD cover and gig posters. I'm also my own agent for gigs and coordinate my own press releases to get press and radio play. I also promote myself online which is becoming a full time job. And let me tell you - PR people, they work their butts off. I spend probably 60% of my time doing the business, 25% writing/recording and 10% of my time actually performing. The other 5% of my time I put through a special processor in my studio and manage to get an extra 50% more time that I spend with my family. (Yeah sure......my wife calls me 'the lodger' and my daughter calls me 'that man'. No seriously, family is numero uno and everything revolves around that. I believe we have to judge our successes by what we lose along the way....and I don't intend losing the most important thing.)

After about a year and a half of hard work I released the album 'Welcome Back To Reality' in February 2008. It was a steep learning curve. Although I've worked in some brilliant recording studios I've always had a sound engineer twiddling the knobs. (Well actually they do a bit more than that). For this album, due to financial and time contraints I engineered, produced and performed around 95% of it myself. The great thing about that is you can control the album's overall feel so it doens't wander off track. I'm really happy with the end result. In fact I love it. Before I released I sent a couple of songs to Billboard World Songwriting Contest 2007 and received a highest level Honourabel mentions for the Sheryl Crowesque 'Believe In Yoruself' and honourable mention for the 'Free' like mantra 'Let Your Life Begin'.

Let's hope we get some radio play and good press for 'Welcome Back To Reality'. The songs are the best I've written and the artwork is great too. By the way, the artwork is courtesy of a 10,000 year old mandala from the dawn of civilisation symbolising balance and harmony. I really tried to focus on keeping the songs simple on this album. Let the song speak to you. And the artwork just rounds it all off beautifully. Thanks to my mate Klaus Kastberg for the drawings. See album cover here.

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In the next few months I plan to approach Mercury Records (was Phonogram) in London to try to retrieve the old 'Frontier' masters fromt he early 90's so that I can pitch those songs to prospective film producers. I'm currently in negations with managment companies, film and tv music production houses and other artists who want to perform my songs. There's a lot of work to do....

Here's some of the brilliant people I've been fortunate to work with so far:

Sandy Jones & Graeme Duffin - Wet Wet Wet
Gary Katz - Producer - Steely Dan
Ian Kewley - Keyboards/Producer - Paul Young
Steve Jackson - Sound Engineer - Bryan Adams
Tony Philips - Sound Engineer - Seal
Dave Bascombe - Producer - Tears For Fears.
Kenny Macdonald - Sound Engineer - Texas
Wix - Keyboards - Paul McCartney
Tony Beard - Drums - Hall and Oates, Paul McCartney
Toby Learmont - Sony Music Mastering, Sydney

Here are some of the recording studios I've been fortunate enough to work in:

Rockfield studio - Wales - birthplace of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody & more
Jimmy Page's old studio - The Mill
Jacobs Studios - England
George Martin's - Air Studio, London
Peter Gabriel's Realworld Studios, Bath.
Parklane Studio - Glasgow
Brill Building – Glasgow
Red Zed’s - Brisbane