Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.... Please keep your fingers out of my eyes as I write as I like to watch the butterflies collide with the glass of the window in the room that I sit....

I was born in the west end of Glasgow (Kelvinside) in December 1967 - 7th December if anyone wants to send me presents. I grew up in a comfortable family environment with my two older brothers Callum and Gordon and my younger brother Bruce. We lived in Helensburgh around the turn of 1960s to 1970s - dates uncertain - and this was where I first came into contact with musical instruments. Callum had a full drum kit and I took great pleasure in waking him from beer induced slumbers through the use of his kit! Gordon by now had taken up playing bass....

Moving to Dunblane in 1973, I progressed through primary school in a stable and fairly uneventful way. In primary 6 (about 1977), I took up the role of Pharoe in Joseph & His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat... Strangely, there were three Pharoes as no decision could be made by the teaching staff as to the best! Anyway, my first public performance on a stage was obviously to have a profound effect!

Allow me to fast forward some six or seven years.... The year was 1979, Pink Floyd had hit number one with Another Brick In The Wall and Gordon had left his bass and amp set up in his flat in Partick when we visited one day. The course was set. My best mate Robert and I had been dipping our toes into music around this time on acoustic guitars - Robert already being a more than competent guitarist (he's now stunning).

I got my first bass in 1979 and, with Robert, we stuck together our first band - Cold Steel. This was very embyonic as we were so young and so learning. But it was fun - predominately Quo covers. Cold Steel was fronted by Jamie Clunies Ross - a 6'5 guy 4 years older than us which had the added benefit of helping us through early high school. Jamie, tragically, died from Hodgkinson's Disease in 1984.

We buggered around with various forms of Cold Steel for a few years with me dropping in and out. In 1983, my younger brother Bruce died in a tragic accident and, I suppose this set my whole ethos for music which I still have today. Have fun, make people happy, leave behind some material which will live forever and live every day like it's your last... 'cos it just might fucking be!!

I kinda took a back seat and practiced up my playing for a few years - listening to Jack Bruce, Stanley Clarke, Sting and others. In 1986, along with an ex-school mate Phil Gill and the first official time with Adrian Robertson - we formed Masque. This band didn't really take off, it was really just an excuse for Phil and myself to live outrageously, dress outrageously and try to shock as many people as possible!! Motley Crue, Poison, Rocky Horror and suchlike were the order of the day.

Following this, and during our college years, Adrian and I went on to form Last Tango In Paris. This band was actually bloody good!! We did a wide range of rock covers and a LOT of original material I'd written - the original format for Saturday Night was born with Last Tango and I still use Tango for Tangotunes Music - my copyright / publishing arm. Although we didn't gig Tango, we practiced regularly, invited numerous and diverse friends along to practices, I had copious sex and Adrian didn't!!

In 1989, I went down to Kent to work for about six months - this signalling the end of LTIP. I did try to ressurect it when I returned north but it wasn't the same....

If I remember right, things were quiet for a few years as I entered the career / marriage years. Around 1992, I joined Apex - a pretty major club / function band locally. I stayed with Apex for about two and a half years, earning good money and having fun.... In early 1995, the wanker of a lead singer had delusions of grandeur and decided a tour of the Balearics would be in order. With a wife, mortgage and young daughter, I left them to it...

In 1995, I formed Phoenix with Neil Winton an old mate of Adrian's and mine from the mid / late 80's. For a short period, Phoenix were quite prolific in writing original material and covering material WE wanted to do - excursions into prog!! Phoenix were I suppose Last Tango risen from the ashes... Things were looking good, we played some really successful gigs but then I started to pursue my club contacts... We weren't a club band, got disillusioned and called it a day.

I continued writing and even performing solo for a few years while I developed my career in commercial property. From the demise of Phoenix and throughout this period, Adrian and I frequently got together under the guise of Unfinished Business. This was the ultimate club / function band who never rehearsed and only ever got together to gig. The integral other half of Unfinished Business were one Mr Ewan Kidd (now a Jacobite with Big Ade) and one Mr Iain Wilson.... See where this is going yet?

I played with a couple of bands in Fife after moving employment to Dunfermline - Freebird and the spin off, Jake's Vest.

In 2002, I got an invitation from my mate Robert (remember him) to join his band Must Hang Sally on bass and occasional guitar!! Needless to say, I jumped at this opportunity - also taking along the drummer from Jake's Vest, David Loney. MHS played really successfully for a couple of years more, all over Scotland but eventually split in September 2003. Our highlight was supporting Nazareth at their Homecoming gig in Dunfermline - 20th December 2002.

Around this time, I took time to restock my musical thoughts. I'd been playing bass for 24 years and although I was good and continually working, it didn't express where I wanted to be. On this ethos, I decided to concentrate on building something as successful as Must Hang Sally but with me on guitar and lead vocals. After meeting umpteen musicians through the local "want ads", I met Andy Keates in January 2004. Andy shared my aspirations to create something new, fresh and without boundaries. We agreed to pursue things and form a band.

Next up was to find the members and (TA DA!!) I called Iain who immediately agreed to drum with us. We refined the draft setlist while looking for a bass guitarist - also playing an inaugural impromptu gig as a three piece in March 2004. In June 2004 Colin Nelson joined the band which was by now officially The Shine. We refined the setlist and ended 2004 with a couple of gigs. Immediately after New Year 2005, Colin decided to leave for personal reasons, Andy, Iain and I regrouped and decided that, no matter what, we would remain the core unit and no-one would screw us over. We met Mark (TSD) Palmer in March 2005, Mark immediately agreeing to join as our new bass guitarist. Mark was thrown in at the deep end in that his initial try out was followed within a week with the need to lay down bass lines on our second recording. Mark's arrival marked the start of Phase 2 of The Shine's life and we continue to go from strength to strength. Strangely Iain and I have found that we also share a strange synchronicity in both our personal backgrounds and the way we think and react.

We are now entering Phase 3 where The Shine are developing our own original material.....  

Please keep your fingers out of my eyes as I write as I like to watch the butterflies collide with the glass of the window in the room that I sit....

Born in Loughborough 1976, the blue blood of England flows through my less than royal veins.

Having started playing guitar aged 15 I taught myself by playing along to whatever song came on the radio. My single biggest influence was Eric Clapton, as his Cream and Yardbirds area material just blew my mind with the melodic genius of his improvisation. Other significant influences on my playing were Mark Knopfler, Francis Rossi and more recently Graham Coxon. 

Within a year I was playing for college band Outcast that played a mix of Dire Straits, Eagles and Joe Satriani. A handful of gigs followed over the next two years culminating in a fine performance at the college rock gig that saw me playing with a football induced broken ankle, seated on the stage. Outcast split up in 1994 with the departure of all members to university. 

In the summer of 1996, along with my brother Richard, we cut a simple demo and formed the duo Blitz. Playing along to drum and keyboard midi tracks, with Richard on Bass and me on guitar and lead vocal, we played a mix of classic rock tracks and over the next two years did a series of gigs in Loughborough including regular performances at the mighty Phantom and Firkin. 

1998 marked the start of a barren couple of years until I moved to Leeds in 2000. Within a few months of moving to Leeds I joined the highly successful Bradford covers band Mirrorball. I played with Mirrorball for three years (over 100 gigs) with three different and equally talented vocalists. Highlights with Mirrorball include playing to a clutch of very minor celebrities including Mark Yates from Terrorvision and half the cast from Emmerdale.

Born in Bridge of Allan (the common, low rent district), Iain grew up involved in many things musical. From an early age he knew that all he wanted to do was play drums but several things, amongst them a lack of funds and living in a cottage flat put paid to his ambitions at that time. Dalliances with the violin and the accordion were, thankfully, although painfully tuneless, comparatively short lived.

An accomplished vocalist at an early age, he filled his pre drumming days by singing in various school productions, first as a boy treble and then suddenly one evening during a performance in the lead of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, as an instant baritone! Though it is not recorded, it is evident that his voice was not all that dropped that night!

Whist noodling about in a music classroom on a borrowed bass drum, snare drum and hi-hat combo in 1982, he was spotted by a passing brass teacher, who seemed to recognise what was, at that stage, a very well hidden talent for all things percussive and was asked whether he would throw in his lot with the infamous (and now semi legendary, at least in their own minds) Central Region Entertainers.

Iain played with the Entertainers for the next 8 years, both percussively and then airing his vocal talents in the various guises of a gnome, a ballet dancing hippo, one half of the legendary Fran and Anna and most notably, Shirley Temple, complete with falsetto voice and ringtails!

During this time, two seminal happenings which were to be elemental in the genesis of The Shine took place. At the ripe old age of 21, Iain finally gathered enough resources together to purchase his own drumkit (previously he had used the kit owned by the Entertainers) and also he met, through a mutual acquaintance (who hes never forgiven for the introduction) a young bass player by the name of Neil

In 1988, Iain answered an advertisement in the local paper looking for musicians to complete a band, placed by a local guitarist. Midnight Express turned out to be another life changing experience in terms of Iain realising that he was actually good enough to hold his own with other, like minded musicians in a modern musical setting. Unfortunately, although showing great potential and winning a local song writing competition and giving Iain his first real taste of the recording studio, the band went its separate ways and it was back to the bossa novas and the funny wigs for a time.

Around the same time, frustrated by a lack of improvement in his playing despite copious and neighbour baiting practice, Iain embarked on a course of drumming lessons with Derek Smith, a well known Edinburgh drum tutor. It was through Derek and his connections that Iain took on his first professional gigs, depping for various Clubland bands in venues of varying salubriousness.

Musical opportunities were sparse, although messing around with a couple of local rehearsal bands filled the need to brutalise mylar for the time being.

In mid 1990, a serious road accident halted both careers in their tracks. Thankfully, the injuries were serious but ultimately superficial. This resulted in a 9 month period of reconstructive surgery and rest. This period gave the opportunity for a sustained period of wood-shedding which solidified and developed Iains feel and technical abilities on the drumkit.

On returning to the south in 1991, Iain met his future wife, Anita, and in 1992 they moved back to Scotland. In setting up home and getting married, the musical career took a back seat. In any case, working shifts and now managing others, Iain had little time to think of anything else.

Around 1995, Iain was contacted again by Ewan and Adrian, his old friends from the Entertainers, who, together with Adrians mate, the afore-mentioned bass player Neil, were looking to form a Function Band and needed a solid, and inspirational drummer, but as they couldnt find one, wondered if Iain would like to join?

The thought of making music and making money at the same time was a heady cocktail indeed and Iain agreed immediately. Unfinished Business was born! Proudly boasting, to this day, that they never ever rehearsed for any gig they ever performed, UB plied their trade in the Function and Wedding Band genre for several sparsely filled, but very enjoyable years.

Through time, the pressures of work and family life caused the gigs to dry up. Iain, frustrated at the lack of opportunities to play, answered an ad in yet another local paper and became a part of what was to become a dichotomous project. Finishing Touch was a 5/6 piece wedding and function band which commanded high fees and the wearing of ear plugs in equal measure. Fronted by Janet and Mick, man and wife and well known local musicians and backed by Iain and John with various other bit part players from time to time, the band went through several minor changes for a number of years, until it evolved into the alter ego that was Sticky. This was the stripped down, 3 piece pub band with Iain, John and Mick which continued to gig and have a laugh after the escape from the wedding circuit, until 3 months before the fateful call from Neil that heralded the birth of The Shine, when it was decided by all that it had all gone a bit stale.

Iain describes his career in music as the reverse of the norm, going as it does from playing show tunes and standards through club and functionland to bog standard pub band territory to, ultimately, The Rock band I always wanted to be in.

The Shine is the perfect vehicle for the coming together of Iains wide and varied influences and experiences (in music at least). The synergy that has developed between TSDs pumping bass lines and Iains hard and heavy backbeat and innovative fills provide the perfect counterpoint to Andys inventiveness on the fret board and Neils undoubted prowess as a frontman. He can even sing a bit too!