History

Early Days

Gav was born in the Northern NSW town of Moree and grew up on a property 40 miles from town. His early influences were classic country and 60’s pop rock from the local radio station 2VM as well as his older brothers & sisters record collection which consisted of Red Hot Hits style albums and classic 60’s rock albums of bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Gav’s first musical training came when he was taught classical piano for five years in primary school and played at a number of Eisteddfods in the local area of Bowral, where he went to boarding school.

Unfortunately, he was taught with the idea that a mistake was rewarded with a ruler-across-the-knuckles so to this day is not fond of classical music. However, he does have a fair grounding in music theory from this experience.

In high school Gav was given the option of rock drumming and took to it, until it gradually turned into training for military drumming, where upon he left. However, this gave him a fair grounding in rhythm. He also at this time started lyric writing.

Gav became sick of being taught by others so decided to teach himself guitar. He would put on school Concerts for his year featuring all the musos in that year. In his last few years of schooling Gavin started writing full songs with the guitar. Also, while a teenager Gav was searching for a musical style that fit him. He initially landed on the boogie blues of Status Quo, before broadening into the Who and finally embracing elements of New Wave and Oz Pub Rock.

Early Bands

While at University, Gav formed a number of garage style bands, with him as the lead guitarist, with names like From The Hip, FARQ, FARQ2, etc. He also started getting a few years of guitar lessons with Harvey James (ex Sherbet) initially at Venue Music then at Harvey’s home. Gav finally help form a band, Hurley Burley, that would last a number of years and play gigs from the top of skyscrapers to parties in Orange. After Hurley Burley folded Gav basically recorded his songs on 4 track recorders, sending them off to publishers and counting the rejection slips.

It wasn’t until he’d talked to Noel at Rock’n’Jazz music shop that he found out about the Society of Australian Songwriters (It changed it name to the Songwriting Society of Australia in 1997) in 1992. Gav played his first live solo pub gig at the Petersham Hotel that year.

In 1995 he became Editor of the Society’s monthly newsletter, a position he still holds. Gav has been President and Vice President at various times in the Society. With the Songwriting Society Gav has played his songs live at the Petersham Hotel, the Annandale Hotel, the Occidental Hotel, the Agincourt Hotel, the Lansdowne Hotel, the Excelsior Hotel, the Iron Duke Hotel, the Cauliflower Hotel, the Harbourside Hotel, etc.

In 1995 Gav formed a duo with Kevin Komene called Harley D & the Professor, playing a type of country rock blues. All originals, the duo played many venues, from the Illinois (Five Dock) Hotel to the Cartoon Club at Dee Why. At every venue the management would offer gigs and the punters would crowd round. Kevin had to call it a day due to travel distances and Gav went solo again. During this time, he’d taken up quite a number of years of singing lessons to improve his vocals.

Velvet Road

In 1998 Gav attended a Potatoes & Poetry Night put on by some of his Irish friends. He’d taken along a guitar and wound up writing a song called “The Butterfly Dance” for the girls to dance to. As he was leaving to get a cab Peter Day offered him a lift home and, on the way, told him he was a bass player.

Soon after at a Songwriting Society gig Gav noticed another songwriter, Ross Bruzzese, had great piano skills and suggested forming a band. Gav had then gone to see some friends, the Flaming Barstools, play at the Excelsior Hotel. Their drummer, Dave ‘Dad’ Alexander introduced Gav to drummer Peter Thompson, who was looking for an originals band. This was the initial beginnings of the band Velvet Road which lasted from 1999 to 2014, went through a number of members, but put out a self-titled EP CD and a full album CD ‘Saturday Morning’, which was recorded at Sound Dog Studios and mastered at Turtle Rock. Gav was always the lead guitarist and vocalist on his songs. Ross also sang his songs

Velvet Road’s initial EP had two songs, “Cold Outside” and “Mr Menagerie” put on mp3.com.au and both songs went to Number 1 in their respective genres. Unfortunately, this didn’t lead to extra album sales, nor more punters at gigs, so the practice wasn’t continued.

In their time Velvet Road played at many venues including the Hopetoun, the Excelsior, the Forest Inn (Bexley), the Occidental Hotel, the Harbourside Hotel, the Three Weeds (Balmain), the Cat & Fiddle, the Bat & Ball, the Coogee Hotel, the Harp, etc and were one of the headline acts at the Kangaroo Valley Music Festival.

Their songs were played on radio stations across Australia, with interviews on stations like WOW FM (St Mary’s) and even playing live in drive time on Triple R. They were also invited to be on the same A&R CD and magazine (January 2005) as Jimmy Barnes and Steve Morse that was promoted through Europe and America. Because of this Velvet Road was played on English radio stations.

Unfortunately, even though the band was musically playing well, and all were still friends, the work of practicing each week and the slog of finding new gigs without any success caused the members to call it a day in 2006. After this, Gav played solo and recorded a solo album of original songs at Sound Dog Studios with Stewart Havill (Fantastic job, mate!). The new album, “Just“, was mastered at Kitty Groove Productions (Ultimo), by Sven Tyderman, who did a brilliant job.

Velvet Road came back together for a nostalgia gig at the Songwriter’s Day, in Darling Harbour in November 2006, which everyone said was excellent. Because of the crowd enthusiasm then they played at the Coogee Bay Hotel, Excelsior Hotels, Cat’n’Fiddle, etc, etc in unplugged acoustic mode which continued till 2014 when Peter moved down to Wollongong. The band had a last hurrah for fans at the Hampshire Hotel, which was attended by a big crowd, then called it a day.

Solo

Buoyed by the enthusiasm generated by Gav’s initial solo album he embarked on the recording of another solo album of his songs called, strangely enough, “Another”. Covered in photos taken by Gav of Egyptian sunsets and sun rises that symbolize another day this album was recorded once again at Sound Dog Studios, with Stewart Havill, but this time mastered by Don Bartley at Benchmark Music who lifted each song without changing their essence. Those who enjoyed “Another” said it was definitely a step up from his previous solo album. The song “West Wind” was turned into a lo-fi Utube video which gained some popularity. However, work pressures prevented Gav from promoting the CD apart from at gigs where he played many open mic nights at many different hotels, as well as having well attended solo gigs.

Initially recorded as an acoustic Velvet Road album to be sold at their gigs in 2013 was the foundation of Gav’s next album, “Road”. Ross laid down bass tracks and Peter the MIDI drum tracks with Gav on guitar and vocals in an attempt to capture the band’s live feel. Even though Velvet Road had over forty plus original songs technical problems meant that only twelve were recorded. AS the band was folding Ross suggested that Gav turn the songs into one of his albums. However, Gav was working on “Another” so the recordings lay in the background until that album was completed.

Gav came back to the “Road” album working with Stew Havill from Sound Dog to “Gav-itise” the album, so it fitted in with the rest of Gav’s solo albums. However, the name of the album, “Road”, was to honour the memory of the band, Velvet Road. Once again it was mastered by Don Bartley at Benchmark Music.

Containing some of the best songs from the Velvet Road era and with backgrounds of local Kensington roads and Mexican photos the album is a striking representation of where Gav is currently at. With a more live feel a lot of people who have listened to the album have exclaimed that its his best yet!

Even though Gav is promoting “Road” a number of fans have complained that some of his most requested songs are not on this album. Gav had started already on a new album called “To Travel On” which has the crowd favourites on it.