Hello, An incredible couple of months that started with getting married, ended with an amazing honeymoon in Australia. What a place. I fully expected to be on the end of some serious heckling what with England winning the Ashes but I found everybody over there to be incredibly welcoming and warm, not as warm as the weather – a cool 30 degrees C…in their Winter - but pretty good nonetheless! We started in Sydney, making our way up the coast towards Brisbane. Sydney is a brilliant city and we took in all the sights; the harbour bridge, opera house, National Australia Museum, The Rocks...

If second chances are a rarity then third chances seldom come about. My recent, temporary relocation to the US came off the back of one such third chance. In my mind Berklee College of Music had become the metaphorical carrot hanging on the end of a stick: the ever-present morsel dangling tantalisingly close to my face, yet still that bit too far away to reach. I’d applied twice before and both times I was deemed not to be of sufficient enough standard to be admitted. Quite why I placed so much emphasis on getting into that school I don’t know, but for whatever reason I did and being told...

So, 2014 disappeared fairly quietly for Tom Gee Band. After a whirlwind year that included our debut album coming in at No. 4 in the iTunes Blues Chart, a British Blues Awards nomination and touring all over the UK & Ireland, we all had a well-earned rest before getting started on 2015. 2015. I can remember being 11 years old in 2000 and hearing people talk about football World Cups being held in 2010, people preparing bids for the 2012 Olympics and thinking how far away that sounded. A lot has happened since then so I decided to take a little bit of time to think about what we are going...

Well, it's been a while. Painswick Arts Festival was the last time I checked in with everybody and things have been so hectic ever since I've let the blog fall by the wayside. It occurs to me that several rather significant things have occurred since July.  Whether it's an independence referendum in Scotland, the startling rise to prominence of IS or the passing of Ian Paisley, it seems to me that the world is ever changing and constantly moving on to something new. It's strange to think that when such huge and significant changes are happening on a global and personal scale - I'm so totally...

"I don't think I've ever done a gig in a graveyard before." We were stood waiting to head on to the stage at the A C Painswick Festival surrounded by the many people who had been enjoying the amazing variety of things to see - from fashion exhibits to local culinary stands and craft stores.  Now it was nearly time for the music, the main stage was bang in the middle of the village, a quiet little village that had been transformed into a vibrant hub of colour and creativity. The main stage was also in the middle of a graveyard. I can't honestly say that I was expecting Alec to say those...

Clarissa Hall, creator of the Swapping Stories album trailer, tells us what it was like to work with Tom Gee Band 3 months sounds like a long time to be working on a 5 minute video, but that’s nothing compared to the amount of time and effort Tom Gee Band have put into their debut album, ‘Swapping Stories’. I’d first heard of blues artists Tom Gee Band a while before their EP ‘Better Things To Do’ was released last year and I was excited to be asked to come along to film some behind the scenes of the new recording.  I caught up with them in the studio at the start of February...

So it’s finally happened. Everyone's taken leave of their senses and asked me to write a blog. I've been thinking about what to write for a few days and I've struggled. Not because there is nothing to write about, but because there is so much. We've been getting the first mixes of the album back over the last day or so and listening to them, I can barely contain my excitement. They're sounding amazing. One of nicest things has been going into the studio every weekend and hearing each member of the band improve upon tracks that I’d already been ecstatically happy with. It’s great to be working...

As promised last month, here is your studio update! We’ve spent the last two weekends at Active Audio Studios now with two more to go and I think we’re all pleasantly surprised by the amount that we’ve managed to achieve so far. As we may or may not have mentioned, the new album is going to feature 11 tracks in total. Quite a ramp-up from ‘Better Things to Do’ which had 5. Those eleven tracks have caused many aching limbs and fingers, sore throats and, for Joe and myself, close-to-disintegrating lips, but we’re quietly confident that it will be more than worth the time and effort...

As anyone who follows us on Facebook or Twitter will know, last year was a pretty good one for us, but I’d like to think it was just a warm-up for the year to come. A testing of the waters, if you will. Whilst John Mayer didn’t come looking for us to support him on tour on the back of its release, the response we received to our EP ‘Better Things to Do’ was positive to say the least. Within days of the EP coming out, it had climbed to No.2 in the iTunes Blues Chart alongside the likes of Hugh Laurie and Joe Bonamassa. Six months down the line, we were named Jason Elliott’s ‘Young...

Yeah, debut album and stuff. Before all that I'd like to share a little story with you. I mosied into my local hairdressing salon to get the usual (short back and sides) the other week and what did I hear on the sound system? Only our EP, Better Things to Do, being cranked out at full volume for the old ladies in the chair next to me to bop along to. As I sat and contemplated the fuzzy feeling I get when they wash my hair it suddenly dawned on me that something had changed inside of me. I knew, even then, that this event had changed my life and my view of the world forever. We've made it. Our music...