My mother was a self-taught musician with an instinctive ear for a tune. We inherited an old piano, and Mum would play songs intuitively after hearing them on the radio.

Growing up in the bush, my early musical experiences were our Saturday night parties. As we had the music, we had the parties, and after extracting some refreshment from an old wooden barrel, my father would insist on singing his favourite Al Jolson tune, Mammy. At other times he would bring out a saw, or a pair of spoons and start playing them while Mum would provide accompaniment on the piano.

I used to listen to a crackly old radio. At the time, people like Buddy Holly caught my ear. We also had a collection of old 78's. We had an old turntable that you had to manually spin with your fingers, to play the records. My favourite song was "Picking up shells by the seashore". .And depending on how quickly I spun, it sounded like either Barry White or Tiny Tim. Somewhere in between, it sounded just right.

There were always musical instruments lying around the house, guitars, mandolins, violins and the piano of course. So it was a natural thing for me to be interested in music and playing. For generations we had taught ourselves to play instruments, none ever took a lesson. The instruments were there, we would pick them up and start to play - poorly at first, but with persistence we would eventually make music, we were given an ear for music - that was our gift.

At the age of 7, I decided that what I wanted in life was to sing. Dad was the local SP bookie and when he had a good day we all piled into the black Wolesley and headed off to town for a big night. I can still remember singing away in the back seat as we dodged the trees and potholes on our way to my Auntie Sal's place at Yarram, which was like a city to us. Sal had a pianola and we loved peddling that thing - music was always at the centre of any gathering we had. Sometimes Mum would take us kids to the movies at the Yarram Regent Theatre, while Dad would visit his sister Sal.

My elder brother Terry put a band together called Soul and Inspiration. They often supported the city acts that toured through Yarram. One night when I was about 12, Terry gave me a chance to front the band. I came flying out onto the stage, sliding on my knees the way I thought all front men were supposed to arrive. Mum was still pulling the splinters out five days later. From that moment on, all I wanted to do was perform (minus the splinters). I used to slide around all the time after that.

I became a regular part of that band. The band evolved and developed from there. We played school dances and local shows and became schoolyard heroes. When I was 16 we won the Gippsland district section of the "Battle of the sounds."

It was also about this time that the Footscray Football Club asked me to move to the city and train with them. I had spent the previous three years at school fighting a campaign to allow me to have long rock star hair, so I jumped at the chance to move to the city.

Terry and myself moved in with our Auntie who lived in the Condominiums of Collingwood, a Peter Mckenna drop punt away from Victoria Park. We worked in a factory by day, I trammed down to the Western Oval to train at night, and shot back to the country on weekends to play in the band. I knew early on that Football was not my calling. I loved the game and I could play it, but I lacked the passion that you need to take it to the next level. So after three senior practice matches my AFL career ended. I knew that I wanted to be a singer and, anyway, how could I ever play against Collingwood?

From our performance on "Battle of the Sounds" we created some interest among the agents. We played at a few venues of questionable repute - one in particular was the George Hotel in St Kilda now The George. Today it is one of the trendiest places to be seen in all of Melbourne, but back then it was one of the dingiest dark holes around. It was a hangout for some notorious underworld figures who, if ever requested a song, I would tell them that Terry would be happy to do it for them. Terry's internal reportoire knew no bounds, and my fear was equally as boundless.

We slogged it out in the hotels for a while and the band steadily developed over this time. Terry decided he would head back to the bush. We got together with my old mate Peter Lee, and a guy called Rod DeClerk, who had experienced some success in "The Mixtures." Along with Noel Sonneman and Michelle Mudie we became "Canyon". The band chopped and changed and eventually Peter Lee and myself joined up with a guy called Ian Mason. Ian was playing with a guitarist called Ron Peers and soon was joined by a bass player…Ashley Henderson.

"Masons Cure" was a terrific band. Ian was a great singer and songwriter and we finally started to get some recognition. Ian discovered he had a lucrative talent for writing jingles, and left the life on the road behind him. Sam McNally joined us on keyboards, via a recommendation from my good friend Martin Daly. And so a band was formed. We called that band "STYLUS".