Mike has always lived in Cardiff, South Wales, and music has always been a huge influence on him; The Groundhogs, Thin Lizzy, Led Zepplin and a local band called Budgie played a big part in this. He bought his first bass in the early '70s and soon after was found to be locked in his bedroom for the next 18 months.

Over the following couple of years he joined various cover bands. However, he found this to be a great limitation, due to his creative mindset, and found it much more rewarding to make his own music - whether it was good OR bad.

It was at this time that he met up with Lindsay Matthews and they decided to write their own material. He bought a drum machine, a 4-track cassette recorder to put down their ideas, and wrote some tunes. After a year or so they had about 20 songs but it consisted of mainly drums, bass and guitar; one thing was missing - a singer. They decided they needed someone to fill that gap and another guitarist.

In stepped Ray Rumsam and Stuart Earp, and they fitted the group like a glove. The tunes began to sound like songs, and after recruiting a drummer they formed a band - Sixes and Sevens - to play their songs like. Unfortunately, this match made in heaven did not last long. Stuart - the drummer - had other committments and after many failed replacements the band soon split up.

A few months of excrutiating boredom later, Mike, Lindsay and Ray decided to carry on regardless. Instead of playing live they decided to simply go back to recording their music, as they were all very much interested in this process. Mike signed up with Immtech training College to sit an advanced diploma in Sound Engineering, and began a tough course of training every day for an entire year! He learned a great deal from this course and now enjoys having total control over all the different stages of writing, producing, recording and mastering.

Mike uses the following equipment:

• Cubase SX
• Sound Forge
• Yamaha Keyboards
• Rickenbacker 4003
• Bass Collection Basses
• Bass Pod
• AKG C 1000 Microphones