“I had been earning money playing drums since I was ten, but Stolen Cars was another level entirely. I had left home at fifteen, trying to find my own way, and I could never have imagined that an audition in Queensland for a band called Norm Baxter and the Neuro Surgeons would eventually take me all the way across Australia to Perth.

Behind the project were two unlikely investors Glen Davies, a real estate agent, and Wayne Thompson, a policeman. They paid our airfares and accommodation and even bought the band a car. The story at the time was that the streets of Perth were ‘paved with gold’ for good cover bands, and they wanted to be part of it.

Once we arrived, the band became our life. We rehearsed during the day, learnt new material, reviewed gigs, soundchecked and performed at night. We lived together and employed four road crew. By seventeen, I had my own flat and was earning my living entirely through music.

For someone still in his teens, it was an extraordinary education — not simply in playing drums, but in what it actually meant to live and work as a professional musician. And importantly, Stolen Cars was successful. We worked constantly.”