ABOUT

" Having THE END on my radio show has made my year!"

Doctor Higgs Bosun, President, No Coast Radio

Richard Messenger, The New Moon, Sussex.

Multi-talented singer, songwriter and entertainer, Guy Barnes, has been involved in music for over 20 years.

Guy`s vocal dexterity has been likened to the soul of George Michael, the grit of Jon Bon Jovi, the swagger of Elvis Presley and the Range of David Coverdale.  Quite a combination!

Guy`s on-stage charisma makes him stand out from today's "look at ya shoes and play" merchants - he can go from Sinatra to Martin, Bon Jovi to Elvis at the flick of a switch.  Venues from hotels to bars and clubs, halls and theaters have seen Guy rock their roofs off.

His earliest memory as a child was watching Elvis in concert in the 1970`s:

 "I remember this cool looking dude in a white suite with the biggest collars I`d ever seen, singing in front of huge crowds. I was captivated - it was definitely Elvis that made me pick up a guitar and want to sing!"

And sing he did.  Guy cut his teeth performing local shows in his village and school impersonating Elvis and also singing classic covers and soon had a string of fans coming to see him perform.

" I never thought of myself as a singer - I was always a guitarist. I wanted to be Big Jim Sullivan, Richie Blackmore, Uli Jon Roth, Richie Sambora; it was those guys that did it for me.  But I realised early on my chops were never gonna be that good and I found I could express myself more with my voice. I even had the fortune of working with Big Jim when I was 17 and Uli when I was 25 and being  able to watch and study how they played guitar...was mind boggling and though I can get away with it as an OK lead and rhythm player, just as I can with most instruments which is useful for studio work, I was always meant to sing."

Guy had been writing songs since he was 13 years old but never took it seriously until he joined his first band.  Then the young singer began a self-apprenticeship in writing and performing.

" I got to a point when I got bored of always having a husky voice after a gig, so in 1996 I took singing lessons and learned how to control my voice.  My goal was to be able to sing songs that singers like Steve Perry and David Coverdale could perform.  So I spent years practicing songs that were way beyond my reach.  But,  figuring the voice is just like any other muscle, I put it through a bodybuilding course.  And, slowly but surely the songs became easier and easier until one day, songs like Open Arms and Still of the Night were easy to perform.  Though that singing and song style is not my everyday norm, it's nice to have that range for backing vocal sessions if I want a 3rd or 5th harmony above the top-line."

"The 1st time I heard people singing my songs back to me was in my 1st real band, Baracuda in 1987, though my songwriting skills were still very basic I`d found  real teachers in Lennon and McCartney, Burt Bacharach, Dianne Warren, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Elton John and Bernie Taupin: all the great songwriters.  I have devoted my career trying to emulate the ideal that simple is best, less is more, top lines are what people hum so make them count - and if it doesn't work in its organic form, it won't work during production.  This is why there isn't a song I`ve written that I can't perform on just a guitar or piano - I won't rely on a studio to make the song work - I`d just be kidding myself!"

Guy with John Oram at Oram Pro in Kent

Guy was discovered in 1994 by legendary Audio engineer John Oram who set Guy up with his own studio and gave the young singer an apprenticeship in the art of recording and production.  This gave Guy the chance to record during the day and perform at night.

"I was the luckiest kid in town, I had no real job like my friends, which was a mile away from the year before lumping bits of metal around hours on end for no real money and then getting on a stage at night and trying to look fresh when I was knackered, so I put my heart and soul into learning all I could about studio work."

 "I used to spend all week writing and recording and then John would let me bring my work up to his studio in Kent and I could mix it on this massive board which was John's "mother ship" console at the time: the BEQ series 24.  This is the desk I still use today.  With thousands of pounds of outboard for me to fiddle with, it was a real eye opener, and most of the time very humbling as well watching John and Dave Cherry (John's right-hand man) make it all look so easy!"

Guy`s brightest moments included being onstage with legendary guitarist Uli John Roth and Keyboard genius Don Airey for a Jimmi Hendrix tribute show in front of the late Monica Danneman, (Jimmi`s fiance) performing a rendition of Little Wing.  Guy also produced and developed Girl Band "Beau-t" and helped get them signed to Andros Goergiou Management who in turn got them signed to Universal Records.  Though Guy is very modest about their signing, the band admit that Guy`s songwriting had a lot to do with it.

Lead singer Tara Lea

" Me and the other girls came into Guy`s studio two years before we got signed, and he completely turned us about!"

BEAU-T  from left to right

Becky Roberts, Kelly Murphy, Tara Lea

"We were acting like all the other girl bands out there and concentrating more on our dancing style and look than our actual ability to sing. Guy taught us harmony and projection and developed our sound: we went from sounding like a female Backstreet Boys to kick ass Rock Chicks with this big guitar band!"

Guy, along with Tara, wrote 30 songs and produced two albums, Guy also set up and directed their backing band and this caught the attention of Andros who was looking for the next big girl band at the time.

Due to politics inside the band and the slow decay of the UK music industry, the band got dropped 3 weeks before the release of the 1st single and Guy moved from London back to West Sussex and set up a new studio and also went back to performing himself.

"This is a fickle industry to be a performer in, especially right now. Hundreds of pubs and clubs are closing every day due to the financial climate.  The smoking ban and price of alcohol has made a lot of people stay at home to drink which, in turn, has devastated the pub scene and made getting an audience harder than ever.  So it's important to have a back-up plan.  For me that will always be songwriting - you can still earn money from publishing when you're down on your luck as a singer and in this industry it's the song that's the key: you can have a great singer or band but if the song sucks..then its over.  I still want to write my Imagine, something that will go down in history as an all time great.  Which songwriter doesn't?!"

Guy in his control Room with the award winning Oram BEQ Series 24 console

After years traveling the world and singing in some of the best venues from the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, to the Green point Bowl in South Africa, Wembley Arena in The UK, and bars and clubs all over Europe, Guy and his partner Tara now live on a farm in West Sussex were Guy spends his time writing when he isn't recording with his band (Drummer Gavin Smith, Bassist Brad Rice, and Guy`s  2nd Engineer/Guitarist Al Hutton).

Guy is also a huge lover of motorcycles and rides an 1100 Custom Dragstar.  His dream machine would be an old 45 knucklehead Harley, fully Bobbed with a Jockey shift and Suicide clutch!

"My time hasn't come yet, but success has been close on a couple of occasions and I truly believe that if you persist, every dog has his day, so I just keep on keeping on."

Guy`s self produced  album SUICIDE IN FRACTIONS will be available to buy in March - so watch this space!

oh..and check out the rest of the site: there's something here for everybody!