Biography

I grew up as many other musicians did, surrounded by music from the minute I arrived on the planet! With a family of keen musicians, I started to play the piano from the age of 7 which I gave up aged 12... I started to play in Steel bands at secondary school which was the perfect grounding for drumming, which I started at 14. Thanks to the steel bands I found myself enjoying the grooves of Jamaican Reggae and Calypso before I learned any sort of Rock or Funk...Two of my favourite artists as a youngster were Bob Marley and the Jamaican superstar Shabba! I soon started having lessons with a great teacher Called Graham Instrall and began to study many styles. I became involved with groups that ranged from Big Band to Break Beat, Hard Funk to Orchestras and, aged 15, started doing the pub circuit with my dad who plays bass. Aged 17 I began to study with Bob Armstrong who helped incorporate the Moeller technique into my playing. I also became involved with The National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Great Britain (NYJO). After finishing secondary school, I decided to get a part time job, and spend the rest of my time immersing myself in as much music as I could including opera, orchestral, small jazz groups, pop bands, Rock bands, big bands, funk, folk groups, shows and so on. I continued with NYJO and also played gigs on percussion with various groups at venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican and Royal Albert Hall. I was offered one of 10 places on the first ever year of the Trinity college of music Jazz course and accepted the offer. Here I was able to work with some of Britain's major jazz artists. I also started playing with the Trinity College Big Band, under the direction of the legendary trombonist Bobby Lamb, and this was another invaluable period in my education. I continued my lessons with Bob Armstrong whilst at Trinity, and was fortunate to becoming busy gigging all over the South East of England, whilst still trying to fit in a pint or nine after college! Whilst in my first year at Trinity I was asked to play for the Canadian Band Barrage. OVer 4 years, I toured extensively with Barrage throughout the world, visiting over 25 countries and every state in America (except for Hawaii). I also played on numerous TV shows and recordings with Barrage. I feel that I really stepped up my game during this time. At one point, we played 336 shows over a 3.5 month period (4 shows a day!), including two drum solos each day! I forced myself to play a different solo each time in order to keep my creativity bubbling. The video to the right contains clips from a documentary which was made about us during our Canada, New Zealand, Asia and Alaska tour in 2003... During breaks from Barrage I kept gigging in England and also recorded many Jazz tracks with various musicians, mainly from the Manchester area. I left Barrage in 2004 and came back to England, raring to get back onto the scene. This proved harder than I expected as, having been away for almost 4 years, people weren't calling me as much, as they thought I was still on tour. However, after 6 months, things were fortunately ticking along nicely again. Over time I have played for a huge variety of artists including Jazz crooner Gary Williams, Rockers Wishbone Ash (See Video to the right), Dancing in the Street and Little shop of Horrors in Londons West End, Marcella Puppini (Puppini Sisters) and various other groups from Small Jazz Trios to 15 piece Funk bands. A major project Im involced with is The Bridge band. This is an 8-13 piece funk pop band which is prettymuch my perfect gig! There are loads of videos from an album recording session we did in 2006 on my video page. We are continuing to gig and will also be releasing an album very soon. I strongly advise you all to come down to a gig. I guarantee a wicked night! check the video on the right for a taster....

Trinity College of Music

  Barrage world tour documentary Snippets

Wishbone Ash Live 2007

The Bridge "Keep Movin On"

www.mattmcdonough.co.uk

www.uksessiondrummer.com

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