ARCHIVE
Having known Darius Keeler and Danny Griffiths for many years before and them both being admirers of Mike and I’s work in not only BirdPen but previous musical adventures it was inevitable that I would end up working with them at some point. My work with Archive started in 2004 joining up with the band to tour the Noise record.. I was thrown into the deep end due to the departure of the current singer at the time and since then this collective has gone from strength to strength.
As a collective the members and musicians are fantastic and hugely talented, both Mike (as Chief Programmer for the band) and I have learnt a lot over the years spending months on end with them, we’ve learnt not just about music and programming but also about life, love, friendships and life changing experiences.
Over the last 7 years I have contributed lyrically, musically and performance wise on the last 3 studio albums plus 2 live albums and 2 live DVD’s.. I have also toured Europe on many occasions with this electronic head space filling monster machine playing to sold out crowds in many countries, selling out the zenith arena in Paris on three occasions and just recently headlining Frances biggest rock festival “Rock En Seine” . I am writing with the collective for the next album due out in 2012.
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ROBIN FOSTER
I met Robin Foster via myspace.. At home whilst I had a weekend off in the summer of 2010 I stumbled across him whilst searching for new music on itunes..
I noticed he was an Englishman living in France and saw that he lived where I was due to play a show the following weekend, I saw that people that liked his music also liked BirdPen and Archive so it seemed obvious to jot him a digital line. I think contacting Robin was the last time I had some real correspondence via myspace.
We arranged to meet after the show and drunk beers and Wine for a bit, talked about music and avoided loads of really drunk French youths.. Robin was in the middle of writing his 2nd album and wanted to collaborate with vocalists so the rest is recent futuristic history really… I clicked lyrically and vocally with his instrumentations and have co-written 5 songs for his new album due out Novbember 2011.
See the links page for more information on both these projects