How long have you been playing Craig?

Bout 6 years

How did you get started?

I’ve always wanted to be a musician, but I never had parents or family that could play an instrument or someone to teach me the ropes. At the end of high school, three of my friends were playing every Saturday and couldn’t find a bass guitarist – I guess the rest is history…

So you obviously don’t come from a musically inclined family?

Not at all. My Dad was a Rugby player and my mom pretty much just buys the “Now” compilations which says it all…

Can you read music?

I have a grade 2 in music from UNISA and I studied production and arrangement at NSA, so yeah, I know the basics, but drum sheets and string sections get a bit hectic. I'm not really much of a sight reader

What’s your favourite band / solo artist?

Probably between St Germain, the Pixies, Jamiriquai and Bob Marley and the Wailers

What are the amps and instruments you currently use?

I’ve currently got a Cort Artisan 5-string Electric Bass, left handed obviously – The Boss GT6B pedal and a Trace Elliot combo Amp

I also have a Cort 5-String – which I tune E to C.

I prefer tuning it B to G

What instruments would you like to have if money were no object?

Electric Double Bass

They’re known as EUB’s in the business (Electric Upright Bass) – any particular make?

I’ve actually never had a chance to try one out, but I’m intrigued but the fact that I can plug my GT6B into it and design some strange new sounds – I like experimenting a lot

Have you tried ‘The Halfway Stage’ yet – fretless bass guitar?

I’ve given it a go a few times but only on a right handed fretless bass. I think the next stage for me is probably a six string.

What have you been doing for the last five years or so?

Recording and Gigging with Zolan Sky
Doing corporate gigs with an Afro Funk Jazz band called ColourBlind
Designing industrial and commercial Sound systems
The odd Session here and there, nothing to serious

Who came up with the name Zolan Sky? Can you tell us a little bit about the band?

Our drummer came up the name, but he never really identified where we got it. It doesn’t have a “Deeper” or spiritual meaning or something like that; guess it was just one drunken evening fishing for a decent name. I like to think of it as “Zol – an - Sky”
Its probably one of the most important things about marketing your ban -, a cool name is an awesome start to selling your music – look at fokofpolisiekar, that’s a cool band name. No one wants to say they support a band and wear the T-shirt if they’ve got a terrible name, no matter how good their music is…

How many gigs are you guys doing each week?

We played at one stage about 3 or 4 gigs a month, but we haven’t gigged at all this year as we’re currently busy recording our first full album and we’re all pretty busy with other projects. Also, our guitarist Anton left about a year ago so we’ve kind of fallen out of touch with the whole gigging scene for now. But we plan to be “show fit” by the time the album is finally released.
At the moment I’m gigging with ColourBlind, usually once a week…

What recordings that you’ve played on would you recommend for listening?

Our new Album (Zolan Sky), which should be ready mid 2006 (if they don’t keep breaking into the studio we’re recording at and stealing the computers….)

Sounds like there’s a story in there!!!

Yeah one hell of an irritating one; our hard drive bombed out last year, and about 2 weeks ago they stole all the PC’s from the studio we’re recording at, including all our files we’ve recorded this year, which the engineer had only backed up on the server from The beginning of the year.
We still have the drums, bass, acoustic and most of the electric guitars backed up, but we now have to re-do all the vocals, backing vocals, perc and a few of the guitar solos.
We were so close to being finished as half the tracks had already been mixed – it’s been extremely frustrating as we can only record at night ‘cause we all work, but you’ve gotta be positive about it I guess and think of it as a chance to do it better…
I could go on for weeks on the trouble we’ve had trying to get this album done as we’ve had the songs pre-produced and arranged for about three years now, but everything just keeps going wrong. It pretty much killed our creativity as we’ve been playing the same tracks for years now and it will be a huge relief when we can finally move on and start working on some new ideas…

What’s been the low point in your career so far?

None really – maybe not getting a chance to play at Oppikoppi yet, that’s about it…

And what has been the high point?

I think the reward of recording and playing your own music and seeing people actually liking it and spending money to get it

What are your goals currently?

A hit song - but ultimately to one day quit my job and make music whenever I want…. A full time job is a huge constraint on musical creativity in my opinion…

What do you get up to when you’re not playing music?

I design sound systems as my day job, mainly for hotels, showrooms, retail stores and multi-level buildings
I also play football

Lastly, how are you getting on as a left-handed bassist? I saw one pic where you were playing an upside-down Fender – left handed instruments aren’t easy to come by are they – and when you do find one, it’s 5% more expensive than a right handed one!!!!

Yeah for sure, it was a real pain in the arse trying to find a decent left handed guitar – I basically had 4 choices;
The Cort,
A horrible mustard fender, which cost about the same as my car at that stage,
Changing a right-handed guitar which through my previous experiences was a disaster waiting to happen,
Or ordering a bass from overseas, which I probably should have done.
There’s a guitar shop in London in Denmark Street called lefties, I’ll definitely organise through them in the future…

Thanks very much for the interview Craig. Best wishes to you and the band – hope you’re gonna send us a copy of the album!!!!