First the Earth cooled…
So here we are again, another creative period for me, Over the years I have done different things that excite me creatively;
I started in an extreme metal band called Sempiternal Fall, that was pretty much my favourite creative group of individuals I have been involved with, We released a 4 song demo in the early 90’s.I went to Uni and we lost touch, during that time I started to play a lot of nylon acoustic guitar and came up with little bits of melody and riffs but in a more mainstream style. I left uni and tried to record on a little cassette 4 track. These early songs were universally terrible and very poorly recorded but gave me the idea that I could actually do it.
So I formed a more mainsrteam band called Enola. I carried a Sony dictaphone everywhere with me constantly recording ideas( I still have all the tapes). We were a good creative outfit together but alas not sufficiently realised as we needed to be and again only recorded a 4 song demo with some just OK songs. We didnt get anywhere. we then put the metal band togther again under the name Kontora. This band was so good that it was criminal that we didn’t break through. we had some creative and personal clashes and we split.
After that I was playing classic rock covers band SuperCharger, That was very time hungry and it started to eat into my personal life and I realised that, even though we were playing some decent gigs, I would rather have all that effort go into something creative. So for about 10 years I tried to put a rock band together with the same musicians and that was fairly successful, we played gigs for a few years under the guise of English Thorn, we had two albums out and were included in Classic rock magazine Cover CD but alas it didn’t evolve into the creative dynamic that I was looking for. Promotion costs money and it hit the fan when finances entered the equation.
I then was excited by the idea of releasing under the alias of my school nickname Badge Mack as that centered me and reminded me of who I was when I started music. I released One album under that name and was happy with the songs. All the compositions and production have been the best I can possibly produce at that particular point in my journey but mainly I have been doing it because I love the creative aspect it brings to my life, some people paint, some people arange flowers, some people restore cars. I write and record songs and set them free into the world hoping that maybe someone will appreciate them somewhere…in that respect I am succesful as a couple of people have said that my songs have really meant something to them…this is incredibly rewarding.
Most people would have the impression that I am not succesful due the fact that I am not famous or rich from music… in that instance I would suggest that they have become confused with the business aspect of the music industry rather than the artistic side. I have never felt I would like to be a famous musician, to be honest, I feel it would be an awful existence but of course connection with the listener is appreciated and I enjoy writing…so even though only a handful of people llisten, they listen around the world, in places I never knew existed and that is more than I ever thought possible.