Biography

From The Early Years

John performing at Wembley Arena with band Frontier 1992

......1967, the colour is ash grey. I was born in to a working class Glasgow family and spent the first 6 years of my life living on the top floor of a tenement building in Maryhill before my parents moved us to the small country town of Stewarton, Ayrshire, 20 miles south of the city. We were the Glasgow overspill. (On fabled Fenwick moors shades of green begin to seep through onto life's canvas).

Music was a natural step for me though I didn't realise the journey would be so long with no real destination. My parents can both sing and several family members were professional or amateur musicians. My dad played double bass in a skiffle band in his youth and was asked to attend Glasgow Athenaeum of Music but became a bricklayer instead. A hard life for a hard man but it was this that afforded me the opportunities in music and life that I've had, and for that, and my mum's support too, I'm eternally grateful. 

My dad's brother, uncle Alec, was a champion clarinet player in the British army. (Add camouflage tones to the palette). He played at Winston Churchill's funeral and his rendition of Acker Bilk's 'Stranger On The Shore' received accolades in the newspapers of the day. My daughter plays clarinet now, keeping that family tradition going.

Back in the 70's when I was about 6, I recall visiting my mum's brother, uncle John, in Glasgow, a bonafide long-haired hippy with a jumbo acoustic guitar and Bob Dylan on vinyl. And one of my earliest memories is of my granny babysitting us, playing a jew's harp; an archaic instrument you put in your mouth and twang. Not one of the most popular instruments, probably cause you can't sing along with it without doing yourself an injury, but musical nonetheless. 

 A young John (accordion) with his brothers and dad

Old Frontier Studio, Prestwick, Scotland

At the age of seven I was recording a capella versions of The Carpenters songs on my parents state of the art 8 track recorder. I also remember driving mum and dad crazy trying to get the phrasing right for the line 'Mr Bluebird's on my shoulder' from 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 about ten, music got more serious as I started learning piano accordion, not very rock and roll I know, but as I later found out, it was great grounding for playing most instruments. My older brother got to play guitar but it wasn't until much later I picked up a guitar myself. After we got semi-proficient with our instruments, our music teacher put together the Kilmarnock Accordion Band and we did lots of gigs in our local shire, mainly at old folks homes. Don't laugh, although that age group are a captive audience when wheeled in front of a stage, it taught me the reality of gigging; lots of practice, early starts and carting heavy gear. Thankfully no knickers were ever thrown at us at these gigs but we did see plenty of 'shoogling wallies' better known as false teeth, swirling around old rubbery mouths. (You can hear some cool cajun flavoured piano accordion weave around acoustic guitars on some songs on my tunes on the album 'Welcome Back To Reality' on the Music page)

As a kid, I also used to sing in church every week, trying to 'gospel-up' those straight-rhythm-hymns. My mum is a Jehovah's Witness, so my brothers and I had to attend church every week but I always looked forward to getting back home and listening to what my dad, a Protestant who managed to avoid going to church, had cranked up on Radio 1 FM on Sunday afternoons. (Windows ajar, wafting orange and blues mixed with tobacco smoke). As an adult I don't think much of religion in general. I think we humans really only need to know one thing and that's to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. 'Love Is All you Need' as a great man once said. If we can teach our children only one thing it should be that. Idealistic I know but realists just live in the world whereas idealists try to change the world they live in. Sadly, much of religion's extremities have forgotten this core belief which causes no end of guilt, greed, conflict and war. (Listen to 'Brothers And Sisters' on the album 'Hope Harbour' on the Music page).

Until my early teens I listened to whatever my parents played on their stereogram; a long wooden bureau with built in drinks cabinet and record player; the whole entertainment package. I didn't realise it at the time but I was getting a songwriter's masterclass from Elvis, Glen Campbell, Sinatra, Jim Reeves, The Carpenters, Tammy Wynette and Neil Diamond. (Squeeze warm autumnal tones on to the portrait; reds, yellows, burnt ochre). My earliest tastes were also influenced by movies of the time like Elvis, The Beatles and Cliff Richard.

A couple of aunts and uncles on my mum's side were piano teachers for the blind in Edinburgh and I still recall big family singalongs with aunts, uncles and cousins around upright pianos and circles of acoustic guitars. I think it was my dad's brother uncle Ian that gave me lyrics and chords for Ralph McTell and Bob Dylan songs as a teenager. 'Streets Of London' and 'Blowin' In The Wind' - awesome songs! I also remember one of mum's friends actually made guitars, which I thought was pure genius.

My mum loved visiting art galleries and museums as much as we did, so the Arts were kind of bred in to us from a young age. My cousin, who's family we visited almost every week in Dumbarton, is the well known Scottish artist Douglas Gordon, who has won the Turner prize plus a scroll full of others. And yes, he plays guitar too. My mum also tells me my great grandfather John Weir McDougall was a published poet though I haven't found his works yet. Maybe he was one of those reclusive writers.

All these childhood memories don't 'make' you a musician or songwriter. They simply send you on your way in the world with a small kit bag of hopes, dreams and a bit too much self-belief. Off you toddle down the brightly lit road toward Entertainment Drive. After a few years, Jacob's ladder of light gives way to dim, dirty, lonely, uneven streets with just enough light cutting through the rain and fog to keep your spirit alive. Before you know it, you're so far down that road you can't see your way back to the main drag. So you keep going, saying and playing the same musical phrase a million times until you can sing it and play it like you own it. This is the route a musician, and in particular, a songwriter, chooses. (My childhood is summed up in the song 'Last Days Of Summer' on the album 'Hope Harbour' on the Music page. It won the Australian National Songwriting Contest 2005 - rock category). 

 John with Frontier on a craggy Scottish hill 1992

1980's

In my early teens I began listening to music on one of those fold out suitcase record players. (The iPod of the 70's wasn't very portable). We had lots of albums in our house, especially country compilations. They're not kidding when they name those albums 'Country Greats'. In to the hotpot throw songwriters like Dolly Parton, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and John Denver then grab some Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Simon and Garfunkel and Billy Joel. I started buying my own albums when I was about 14; Meatloaf, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Bruce Horsby. 

I founded my first band, when I was 16, writing pop/rock 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.

A few years later I was introduced to some meaty, beaty, big and bouncy music, thanks to some biker friends whoe had a wee 'stone' cottage in the Scottish countryside I used to frequent. Thanks to them I discovered The Who, Bowie, Free, Bad Company, Led Zeppelin, Dylan, Queen, Thin Lizzy, Pink Floyd, CCR, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young. Another masterclass. Mixing all these ingredients together my style became a rich musical stew. They say you are what you eat and the same applies to music. I was eating a smorgasboard of sounds and began to sweat it out of my musical pores. 

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, Progressive Rock would best describe it. They were totally instrumental so 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.

1990's

We recorded the Frontier album with a 3 different producers; Adam Moseley (Wolfmother, U2, Beck, John Cale), Gary Katz (the legendary Steeley Dan producer) and Ian Kewley (Paul Young's keyboard player and M.D.). We used some session musicians too like 'Wix' (Paul McCartney's keyboard player), Graham Broad (Roger Waters, Van Morrison) and Tony Beard (Jeff Beck, Hall & Oates). We recorded at several studios including Jimmy Page's Mill Studio, Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, Rockfield (home of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody) and George Martin's Air Sudios. The album was mixed at Pete Townsend's Eel Pie Studio in Richmond by Steve Jackson. (Dire Straits, Bryan Adams, 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 'The Sun Is Gonna Shine Again' that we recorded at Texas' studio in Glasgow with producer Kenny McDonald (Texas). The style was Rock/Pop, it had depth and promise. During this time I was listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin and also steeping myself in the great soul singers like Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Al Green……singer's singers.

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, Paul Rogers). 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 and our own naivetythe band split soon after. At that time I was 25 years old. Listen to Frontier music here www.myspace.com/thebandfrontier

John Harley Weston & Donny Little (now guitarist with Paolo Nutini) 
O'Henry's Pub, Glasgow 1995/6

For the next 3 years I was managed by Elliott Davis (Wet Wet Wet's manager). I started another band called John Harley and The Pack, a slightly heavier rock outfit than Frontier, this time featuring Donny Little (guitar), Chris Thomas (bass) and Raymond Corry (drums). Add in Rupert Black (keyboards) and Dave Watson (drums) who had previously been with me as part of Frontier's live act. Various morphisis also included George Lundy (drums) and Billy Love (Bass). We never played a proper live show but we wrote and recorded in Elliott Davis' studios Pet Sounds and The Brill Building for almost 2 years. A daily mind numbing which almost drove me nuts; rock and roll blue balls. During this time I performed solo acoustic gigs, as John Harley, mainly in Glasgow, including at 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 with guitarist Donny Little, who now plays with Paolo Nutini.

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. Think John Mellencamp meets Free and The Eagles. 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 Australian National Songwriting Contest 2005. (10 years later) More info about that later.

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

'John wins the Australian National Songwriting Contest 2005 rock category
Awards ceremony, Wests Leagues Club, Sydney

Australia

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 original songs at venues around the Gold Coast but there wasn't enough money to sustain a five-piece band and we soon split, although I did keep in contact with guitarist Pete Devine and in the years since we performed hundreds of acoustic gigs. Back then 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 and V8 Supercars, so music took a bit of a back seat. 

While I was at Showtravel my boss played some of my songs to one of our clients, Festival Records, who happened to be located next door. They asked if I could write a song for The Brisbane Lions AFL team. I wrote The Road To Victory on the acoustic guitar and sent a very rough copy to my musician/producer friend 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 the rock flavoured production which had celtic and country undertones. 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.

2000's

From 2000 to now, as well as being musician and songwriter, gigging and recording, I've also been an Art Department Coordinator in the Film Industry, mainly working out of Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast of Australia. I've worked on shows like Steven Spielberg's Terra Nova, The Lost World, George of the Jungle 2, Mermaids. I also coordinated the Action Vehicles office on the 2nd World War feature film, 'The Great Raid', staring Benjamin Bratt and Joseph Fiennes. But I'd rather be making music all the time...

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). Although a little eclectic in places the overall feel of the album is soft classic rock with bluesy roots. 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 and Jimmy Buffet. I was also voted one of the top 5 best vocalists in the independent music world at Singeruniverse, by Dale Kawashima, a heavy-weight US Music Publsiher who's looked after the catelogues of artists like The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Natalie Umbruglia.

In 2006 I put together a home recording studio so I could continue to write and release music as an independent artist. I started work on a new album 'Welcome Back To Reality' in between gigging and being Mr Mum, looking after our daughter Mackenzie. In the madness of early parenthood, between making packed lunches and playing dinosaurs, I approached music equipment companies looking for sponsorship deals and managed to secure endorsements with Takamine Guitars, D'Addario Guitar Strings and Neumann Microphones.

Being an independent artist I'm not signed to a major publisher or record label, so as well as writing, playing and recording all my own music, I do all the artwork for CD covers and gig posters, book my own gigs, coordinate press releases, try to get radio play and also promote myself online which is becoming a full time job. I thought computers were meant to save us time. I spend 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, ha.

After about a year and a half of hard work I released 'Welcome Back To Reality' in Feb 2008. Although I've worked in some brilliant recording studios I've always had a sound engineer twiddling the knobs. (RESPECT!) For this album, due to financial constraints, I engineered, produced and performed 80% of it myself, including acoustic and electric guitars, bass, keyboards, drum programming etc. I even pulled my old Hohner piano accordion off the shelf for several songs which was like putting on an old glove. This really breathed life in to the recordings adding a cajun, folk-rock feel to the album. It's a long process writing, recording and producing and album. Thankfully I had a little help from my friends; Sandy Jones to co-write, produce and play on 'Believe In Yourself', John 'Swanee' Swan to co-write 'I'll Never Leave You Lonely', Indy Clark lent backing vocals to 'Welcome Back To Reality', Pete Devine, additional guitars on 'What Do You Want From Me' and sound engineer Jimmy Keane helped me mix my way out of the mess I was creating. Mixing is a black art. I later had Toby Learmont at Sony DADC in Sydney do the mastering. I sent a couple of songs to Billboard World Songwriting Contest 2007 and received a highest level Honorable mentions for the Sheryl Crowesque 'Believe In Yourself' and honourable mention for the 'Free' like mantra 'Let Your Life Begin'. 

From 2006 to 2009 my guitarist Pete Devine and I logged about 400 acoustic gigs in South East Queensland playing covers and lots of my own material. There's a full list of past gigs on my gigs page, we've even played for the mayor and the state premier. During this time my music was added to Channel 7's Beijiing Olympics playlist (Believe In Yourself and Waltzing Matilda). Then in 2009 I injured my shoulders lifting things that were too heavy. Turned out I had torn the tendons in my shoulders so I had to put down the guitar, for almost 3 years. 

2010's til now

Because I couldn't go out and gig with my dodgy shoulders I started collaborating with other local writers, including Kevin Schipke and Chris Miles, a Welshman who now lives in Brisbane. I would either write with them or just record vocals for them in my studio. I was happy to keep my hand in and the results were really good, you can hear them on the Music page under the heading 'Working With Other Songwriters'. During this time I pitched my own music to many film and television production houses and in 2012 placed 2 songs in Channel 9's 'The Voice' Australia.

In early 2013, after a few steroid injections in the shoulders and lots of rest I started to recover and did my first gig in 3 years in the January at The Centre in Beaudesert for the Scenic Rim Mayor's Australia Day Awards. It was great to get back in the saddle and this started the creative juices flowing again.

I did the music for a video-book entitled 'I Hear The Whispers' featuring images by photographer Wendy Buick. You can find this under the Videos tab or by searching Youtube.

2014 has been an interesting year.....apart from writing new music which I will start recording late this year, I also worked as Art Coordinator for the Queensland shoot of the Angelina Jolie directed movie 'Unbroken' and also worked on the movie 'San Andreas' starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. I use my real name John Higgins when working in film.

Ok, so it takes a bit longer than you think when you have to work for a living. 

It's 2016 now - after San Andreas I had some down time from film and recorded 9 new songs at home, acoustic guitar and vocals. I enlisted the help of my friend, award winning engineer/producer Sandy Jones to build the tracks musically, from acoustic to full band. He's a great musician and I didn't have time to do this because I started work as Art Director on a film called 'Nest 3D' starring Kelsey Grammar (Frasier), Kellan Lutz (Twilight) and a huge Chinese star Li Bingbing.

After that the train didn't stop and I took off to Berlin and Scotland to work with my cousin, Turner Prize winning artist Douglas Gordon on a forthcoming film he's written and will be directing called 'Point Omega', based on a Don Delillo book.

I took my family on this trip and we had 5 fabulous months in Europe. The whisky tours, eh, I mean, location scouts were great. We were there to find a main location for the movie which we did, up near Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands. The movie will be shot in 2017.

My daughter, who is only 14 is a great artist and while we were there she designed a tattoo for Douglas, a cluster of thistles now adorns his torso. Super cool!

While in Europe I managed to squeeze in some time to catch up with producer Sandy Jones at his studio (Foundry Music Lab, Motherwell) and we finished off the album. Mental year so far.

The album 'Music Man' is available from all major online retailers (November 2016). I think the songs are the best I've written, lyrically and musically and Sandy's work is brilliant too. Check it out on my Music page.

After 5 months in Berlin and Scotland I was lucky enough to arrive back in Australia in time to work as 2nd Unit Art Director on the Marvel movie 'Thor - Ranarok' which was filmed on the Gold Coast. It was a hectic few months and now it's time to concentrate on 'Music Man' release and maybe even squeeze in a gig or two.