Greetings rock fans, ok so this is going to be very informal and will include more personal information about me that is more in a discussion form, rather than spewing out facts about what I have done and who I’ve performed with and trying to impress the reader. About me, Brad Cunningham, I cannot explain my art more simply than saying that my music, performance and song writing is (other than being a obsessive family man) my hugest passion, I lovingly agonize over my sound, my songwriting arrangements and lyrics. Every part is the sum of the whole and I truly adore it. Watch a live performance of mine and you’ll see. As a young kid I was besotted with being a farmer, I used to grow maize, and wheat and any random crop I could in my folk’s garden, just as risky as being a muso I guess. I definitely grew up in a musical family, my Mom, played piano and piano accordion, there was always music being played in our home, we grew up with music. I had recorder lessons in junior school however that also never stuck, I only started taking guitar seriously after I left school. My very first guitar was a Junior Maya, I’ll never forget it. The action was atrocious and the tone even less than putrid, I mean the guitar was such an indescribable piece of shit that it was left broken and discarded in a school dustbin! Someone brought it to my brothers attention, who was falling in love with guitar at the time, and said “you want a guitar?” and told him which bin to go scrape it out of. My Dad, who has always had craftsman’s hands, managed to paste the guitar back together and it was handed over to me. After being shown a few chords from my brother, and some songs with chord charts I dug out from my Moms piano playing archive, I then started, through cracked, peeling and bruised fingertips, to learn how to play it. My first song I started to learn that sounded almost like the original was Carlos Santana’s “Evil Ways” a whopping three chords, I set my Mom’s little keyboard to play a simple rock beat that I jammed along too, and man did I feel like a rock star. This was my first year out of school and I was living with my folks in a little town called Butterworth in a ‘country’ what was then called Transkei and I was attending a part time branch of University of Transkei (that is another story in itself) The guitar was eventually sold to some poor soul for a few bob at a flea market, a big part of me wishes that I had kept it only just to be able to smash it to pieces onstage after one of my “I Wanna be a Rockstar” tribute shows, I even think the guitar itself would have loved to end that way too. My folks after seeing that this was one of the few things I liked and started to excel at suggested that I buy a better guitar, fortunately my grandmother had left me a small inheritance, so my Dad after a business trip in East London returned home with my second guitar, also an acoustic steel string box guitar, an ‘Aria’ I feel head over heels in love with this beautiful instrument. I still have it today and it even featured on my “Big Cigar” album and there isn’t a song I have written that wasn’t composed on it. I’ll be brief/vague in this paragraph as it wasn’t my favourite or most comfortable time for me, but there was a time where I tried to suppress my infatuation with guitar and dreams of being a ‘real’ musician. The reason for this mainly was my being encouraged to seek ‘real’ employment and to keep music as a hobby. Me, being the ‘pleaser’ that I was in those days, I duly obeyed, at least for a few years, until I packed it all in, and after a brief phone call to my brother, he took me to a music shop where I purchased a small P.A. system which I practiced in my bedroom (which was the housekeepers room) singing and playing guitar to the wall. Soon after that I performed my first gig over ‘happy hour’ in a local pub, I earned a whopping fifty bucks (less than $5US) and after getting over being terrified I was as proud as punch. That little system worked its heart out and not only paid for itself, but also for guitars, cables, microphones, harmonicas and the next P.A. system to replace it. I only sold it a few years ago and it should still be working today. It will be almost twenty years old…wow. One positive thing to come out of resisting guitar and singing was it made me buy a blues harmonica, man do I love those little instruments and it plays a small signature role in all my albums so far. With almost 20 years in the industry and 2 sold out physical albums (Big Cigar and Back To Life), the third is about to be released. I have enjoyed airtime on local radio stations and features in magazines and even acted in a movie. I see myself as a sincere songwriter, even though I tend to play “silly buggers” most of the time, my agents refer to me as “Mad Brad” for my cover gigs. I enjoy all genres of music [Classical to Metal] It can be soft, slow & melancholy or fast, hard and raucous , so long as it remains melodic, I’ll find something I’ll appreciate. I feel I have a lot to offer the music industry, and I think that the “mature” people that hold the power of opportunity for aspiring artists should look to individualism, natural talent and fresh trends, and not bow to making the corporate buck. Musical Talent is a divine gift, let us channel it as such……….. Peace