 Craig Payne
was born on the 24th March 1963 in Fontainebleau
France
where his parents were stationed with the Royal Air Force.
Returning to England sometime in 1965.
In 1974 the
family emigrated to New Zealand originally settling in the North
Canterbury
town of Kaiapoi.
Craig took
up guitar at age twelve after seeing
the movie "Ferry Cross The Mersey" by British 60's rock
legends Gerry and the Pacemakers and from there developed an interest
in bands such as The Beatles, The Shadows and many of the 50's Rock n
Roll acts like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
His first
professional gig happened in 1978 when he was
fifteen forming a three piece band "Exodus" with guitarist
/ singer Chris Boje and drummer Stu Ford (no bassist,
could've been the White Stripes) and played a lunch time
gig earning $12.00 each.
Over the
years Craig played in a number of bands
around Christchurch's clubs and pubs while writing and
recording demos when he could.
The
most successful of these bands was "Dizzy Heights", which despite not
practicing much, lasted four years and several local T.V appearances.
In 1996 Craig resurrected the name
"Exodus"
and put a tribute band together with the intention of performing some
of The Shadows music. At the time there were many "Tribute" acts
around, but they all used backing tracks, which sounded pretty bad, so
he thought a live band playing something clever would work.
Well it did. The first show staged at a Christchurch chartered club
played to 800 people, and so did the next, and even the one after that
had good crowd numbers. During these shows Craig thought he'd
try
something new. Original music in a tribute show? Well that worked as
well and tunes like "Liverpool Crying" and "The Oily Rag" stood up
pretty well with the crowds.
With quite a
bit of bad management and in-fighting
"Exodus" fell apart although the lurid gold jackets still appear from
time to time.
After the
Exodus experience Craig essentially quit music
and moved on to various roles which included Corporate Security, Chief
Reporter's Assistant at the Press newspaper in Christchurch for two years and more
recently Funeral
Directing.
It was during his time at the Press that he became
interested in media communications studying Journalism, Media
Studies, Written Communication and Professional Communication through
Massey University and the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand.
Craig's interest in music was rekindled mid-2007 with the compilation
of the
13 track album "Passing
Shadows".
The album "Passing Shadows", which was a compilation of old and new
material, offered some perspective on where to head musically in the
future.
The
next album "Guitar Exponent" represented a major
return to writing and recording for Craig and features some pretty cool
material.
2008 got off to a roaring start with the album, "Beautiful Night -
Craig plays McCartney", which is a collection of instrumental versions
of Craig's personal favourite Paul McCartney hits.
Craig hadn't considered a "covers-concept" album before and had an
absolute
ball working on some of the most memorable tunes of the past four
decades.
"Beautiful Night" was swiftly followed by "Rockin' On A Level Surface"
which features 13 original guitar instrumentals.
His
fifth album, "Wanderlust", the title track was written by Paul
McCartney, featured 12 new original tracks which took his
career to the next level both as a composer and an
instrumental guitarist.
Album
6 "Love In A Changing World" was actually going to be released at
midnight on New Years Eve 2008 / 2009. But after previewing a few
tracks here and there the interest in the album was strong enough to
bring the release date forward and so a release date of November 3rd
2008 was
decided on.
It must be said that 6 albums in 14 months is a cruel and unusual
pace to work at...
But Craig pulled it off in style using a generous backlog of material
written in the preceding years.
Craig's 7th album and final release for 2008 was "Craig plays The
Shadows", which followed many emails and much
feedback from people who had either bought one of Craig's albums or
listened
to tracks online.
It has that 'clean,
cool sound' indicative of Hank B Marvin of the Shadows and a nice vibe.
Craig had a lot of fun making this very simple
album choosing to record in a way that might capture a bit of amplifier
buzz and a few crackles and pops that are slowly becoming a distant
memory now most recording is digital as opposed to analog.
Each lead guitar track was recorded with no overdubs to try for a
natural and live feel.
The album 'Once Upon A Long Ago' is a window into Craig's musical past as a listener and a
musician. The title track was written by Sir Paul McCartney and sets
the feel and direction of the entire album.
After a brief rest early in 2009 Craig decided to issue the single
'Drive
My Car' (Live) as
a precursor to a second album release for 2009 which
would feature some
truly classic rock.
Craig doesn't tend to rest for long and the next project on the block
was the
album 'Day Tripper - Craig plays The Beatles'.
Trying to keep the integrity of the original version of each
track and obviously being an instrumentalist brought some new
dimensions to the tracks.
And
so the story continues...
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