Biography

HillBilly Kid Musician Biography.

The "HillBilly Kid" was born in 1956, in a little Italian town, near the base of the Italian/Swiss Alps, and migrated to Austraila in 1958, with his parents.

Even as a little kid, he always loved to listen to the radio, especially to artists like Elvis, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and all the other Rockabilly greats, who were around at the time.

At the age of 10 years old, his parents enrolled him into piano classes, where he found it boring playing the ususal piano music, he was being taught. Having heard Jerry Lee Lewis on the radio, he tried to emulate the Killer's style, which got him into trouble with his piano teacher, as Rock 'N' Roll was then percieved to be "The Devil's Music" ! He soon got bored with having to learn and play the usual, monotonous tunes that he was being taught, so a year later he decided to learn to play the guitar.

His first guitar was a cheap, beat up, old nylon stringed classical, but he soon replaced the strings with steel strings, and learnt to play along to his favourite Rockabilly & Rock 'N' Roll tunes, the first being a simple 12bar blues in E ! He soon discovered that he could pick up most songs by ear, and so he started to get down and learn as many Rockabilly songs as he could.

On his 12th birthday, he received a second hand Canora Solid Body Electric Guitar, with a small 10watt Coronet Amplifier. Pretty soon he was playing all the songs that loved, and formed his first "Band" with his next door neighbour. They played all the tunes that they heard on the radio, and even a few from the TV Show, Brian Henderson's Band Stand, and Johnny O'Keefe's Six O'Clock Rock.

Then at the age of 16 he made friends with 2 school mates, who also enjoyed playing music. They quickly formed a 3 piece combo, and played at parties and school socials. Unfortunately, the direction that the band was taking, was straying from the kind of music that the HillBilly Kid loved to play, so after a few months, they decided to call it a day, and went their seperate ways.

In his final 2 years at school, he became involved in a 5 piece band, called "Adenine", a cover band which played a variety of popular songs of the time. They played at parties, school socials, coffee houses, and other organised dances. The end of school, and different directions in life ended the band.

Many years passed until another opportunity presented itself, then in 1999, he was invited to join his brother's band as a drummer, but this did not last long, as the band wasn't going anywhere. As a result 2 of the band's members decided to form "Scarab", and asked HillBilly Kid to join them as a drummer.

"Scarab" played a combination of covers and original songs, and played at several gigs, however due to internal problems, they too ended up calling it a day.

A serious motorcycle accident put HillBilly Kid out of action for 7 years, during which time, he continued to experiment and practice his love of Rockabilly. In September of 2008, HillBilly Kid decided to enbark on a solo career, and started his own home recording studio, HILLS SOUND PRODUCTIONS AUSTRALASIA{HSP-A}. He now writes, arranges and records all his own music, which also include covers of his favourite Rockabilly Artists.

The HilBilly Kid's aim is to try and reproduce that raw, unmolested sound that was typical of SUN Studio's early recording artists of the 1950s, by using a combination of analogue and digital recording methods.