Mick Paul

Originally trained in classical guitar, I was offered a course at the Royal Academy, but I had to do oboe as well; I declined, all this as my love of the bass guitar led to my first band in 1970 doing 2 singles for Vertigo and an album at Olympic Studios with a songwriter named 'David Rees', his original Demos had Tony Ashton, Mick Taylor and Keith Moon playing on them. In 1973 I had a short period with some American musicians who went on to form 'Poco'. In that summer I joined a band that had a record at No 7 in the charts ' The Hotshots'. In 1974 I joined Pop Band 'Union express'and toured Europe for two years, enjoying the lifestyle but not the music. In 1977 I did a summer gig , playing Berkeley School of Music Big Band Arrangements which greatly improved my sight reading and technique. In 1978 I mainly did session work for BBC T V and various publishers , working with my great but late friend, guitarist Mick Wayne. In 1979 I formed a band with ex Stomu Yamashta keyboard player Bruno Dean co writing an interesting mix of Post New Wave and Progressive. I joined London based band 'Killer Wales' in 1980 playing the London circuit with The odd European gig. Mike Ratledge and Carl Jenkins ( Ex Soft Machine) did some production work for the band on two singles.

During 1982 I formed a band with Ex Parliament guitarist Greg Parker, this dissolved as do many good ideas and I became an 'In House' bass player for Abbeydale Studios in West London I did this for about two years which gave me time to do more writing for myself. I started another band with keyboard player Polly Hewett and Ex Dalis Car drummer Paul Lawford ,we ended up forming our own production company and writing the Labour Party campaign song for Neil Kinnock in 1987 . In 1990 I joined ' More Tea Vicar' and produced an E.P. on vynal. I also co wrote and played on an 'Aquarius' single for Yello Records Produced by Tyrrell. In 1992 I co wrote and produced some Dance Records for Independent label 'Tomato Records' with French percussionist Pascal Benadjoud In 1993 I played on a David Hasselhoff single ' If We Could Only Say Goodbye'. Also that year I produced a single for Pinnacle Records, a cover version of 'Sailing' by Christopher Cross, featuring Kevin Power and Maria Ventura In 1994 I played bass in a show ' Viva Carnival' in which my wife Maria Ventura-Paul appeared for a six week run at Saddlers Wells Theatre.

I joined the David Cross Band in May 1995 and had to learn virtually two albums of material quickly, prior to going to Germany for a short tour. I very much enjoyed writing and recording 'Exiles', and am looking forward to the challenge of making David's next album as unique and as strong as the last.