Arch Stanton

I was born in Dublin City on April 2nd 1975, avoiding a Fool's Day birthday by mere hours. My mother's daily piano practice during the pregnancy must have had a significant effect on my budding synaptic connections, as I expressed a keen interest in music as soon as I could talk. At the age of four, my letter to Santa contained an urgent plea for a "guitar with a light in the middle". I'm still waiting, by the way.

After several aborted attempts to learn piano in the conventional fashion, ("Let's try... 'Three Blind Mice'. "Let's not"), I decided to teach myself the instrument, and later studied the saxophone... primarily because women seemed to like it.

I began performing around Dublin venues in my late teens as a singer and keyboard player, regrettably sporting a mullet. Seeing sense and with mullet snipped, I took up the guitar, attended singing lessons with the distinguished Frank Ecock of the Royal Irish Academy, acted in a number of festival-touring plays and placed myself in numerous & contrasting musical endeavours. For the sake of experience, I played in all sorts of groups (whose repertoires ranged from jazz to, unforgivably, country & western), wrote a few soundtracks for short films, took part in choral recitals in the National Concert Hall, gave lessons and began to forge my own solo work.

I have now whittled away the activities that were really only beneficial in terms of experience, and concentrated on the "real stuff". I front my own band in the city and play guitar & sing in progressive group Magnum Opus (who should be releasing their first album in Italy later in the year). I am a member of a fusion trio yet to gig called Pavilion, and I have started working with ex-Nine Wassies from Bainne guitarist, Giordai Ui Laoighaire and ex-Pet Lamb drummer Dave Lacy under the project name, Morgan the Bouncer. Sometimes, I schedule an hour off to get a bite to eat.

I consider it a rare privilege to have been brought on board for David Cross' fifth album "Book of Songs", and I'm staggered by the sheer luck of it... oh, every four minutes or so.