Description
Twentysevens are Steve Tyson, John Barr, and Dave Parnell. Steve plays various guitars and other stringed instruments, JB plays bass guitar, and Dave plays drums and percussion. They all sing. They all hail from Brisbane, Australia. Individually and collectively, they have traveled the world playing music, or soaking up music. Individually and collectively, they have shared the stage with some of the biggest names in the world. For many years, the three of them were a part of successful Australian folk-rock band Rough Red, who toured Europe extensively and were a regular on the Australian festival scene. The journeys of that band took them to Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland, France, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Ireland and Estonia. The project that is now Twentysevens burgeoned out of the need for a new vehicle to deliver a bunch of different, evolving songs that the three of them were "messing about with". Initially, they locked themselves away in Steve's new studio, and jammed, and wrote, and jammed, and wrote, and jammed, and wrote, and jammed ... you get the picture. Eventually, Twentysevens was an entity, and close to 30 songs were whittled down to an album's length 15. Check out the media INTERVIEW which gives you some insight into how the songs, and the band, evolved. Here's a bit about the lads who are Twentysevens .... STEVE TYSON By his own admission, Steve is a music addict. "I can't help it. I can lose myself for hours in record stores every week. I'm slowly discovering downloading, but you just can't replace that excitement that comes with grabbing a CD in the record shop and reading the liner notes." His addiction started with the Beatles ("when I was a kid, I was too young to go to the Beatles concert when they came to Brisbane, but I knew they had to drive up my street to go to the airport the next morning. I sprained my ankle jumping out of my second storey window to get to the street in time to see them drive by"), continued through his discovery of blues, and grew to encompass just about every musical style imaginable. As a guitarist, he played in local bands Gentle Art, Spike, and Felix, that supported Black Sabbath, Elton John, Billy Joel, The Average White Band, Gloria Gaynor, Osibisa, The Ritchie Family and a couple of others he can't remember, at Brisbane's rock and roll headquarters, Festival Hall. Career highlights to date? "Playing in Chuck Berry's band in his Brisbane shows. He actually shared my guitar when someone stood on his lead and snapped it off. We traded places mid-song. It was unbelievable." Other highlights? " The Bardentreffen Festival in Nuremberg, Germany in front of 20,000 people, and playing a gig at the Montreux Jazz Festival". The road ahead? "Twentysevens is a great challenge but great fun too. I love playing in a stripped-back three piece format" JOHN BARR JB's first gig was a talent quest that his dad had to drive him and his band mates 150 kilometres to get to. They lost. But that gig started a love affair with the bass guitar, that saw him become a sideman for a whole bunch of people around Australia. He played in most of the same bands with Steve at those Festival Hall support shows when they were kids. Although he played a variety of styles as a bass journeyman, it was the honesty of the Stones, and Bill Wyman, that drew him to roots music in the first place, and has kept him firmly in touch with it ever since. Career highlights to date? "Bardentreffen was probably a high point for all of us. The German people just love their music, and playing in that historic square in Nuremberg to a sea of faces was pretty amazing. Also the Skagen Festival in Denmark. We played it three times in Rough Red and we always had an absolute ball there" Now? "We are having a great time creating in Twentysevens. We just want to get it out there now to as many people as we can." DAVE PARNELL Classical guitar was Dave's first instrument. He turned to his first love of drums when his parents finally relented, purchased ear-plugs, and allowed the first drum kit into the house, hoping it was a passing phase. By that stage, having moved on from the Partridge Family, he had discovered Led Zeppelin and all things John Bonham. Much of his early playing was done in the North Queensland town of Mackay, with JB as the other half of the rhythm section. A few sideways ventures back to guitar happened along the way, and a stint working as a sound engineer, before he ended up firmly behind the skins again. His musical enlightenment continues to this day by raiding Steve's CD collection every week. Unfortunately for him, he will never, ever live down the story of driving a band tour van on the wrong side of the road into the path of an oncoming train at 2am in downtown Amsterdam. Whilst his navigational skills were never in question, he was banished thereafter from taking the steering wheel. Musical highlights? Besides some of the great festival gigs, Dave says " working on this album has been a career highlight for me. Not only has the creative and playing part been amazing, but the guys left the mixing of the album to me, and that aspect of the process I have really enjoyed." From here on in? "Like the other guys, I just want to get our music in front of as many people as possible, and I really want to start work on the next album."
